


violet hill

by rejectedreality



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abused Harry Potter, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Genderswap, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Physical Abuse, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but it does get better, fem!Harry Potter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-09-24 01:39:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9694178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rejectedreality/pseuds/rejectedreality
Summary: “It’s not that bad.” Hermione tries to amend.“Not that bad?” She whispers harshly, self-consciously pausing to see if she’s accidently woken anyone up. “One of them is an assassin.”“A brainwashed ex-assassin,” Hermione corrects. “The distinction is important, Harry, they’re your soulmates.”“And that’s supposed to make everything better? Assassin on the streets, sexy in the sheets?”Hermione stutters and Harry can almost feel her blushing through the phone.“That isn’t what I meant and you know it.”Harry can hear her own breath crackling through the phone when she sighs, “I’m sorry. I just… I never thought that this would happen to me.”“You mean two super soldiers from the 1940’s as soulmates? I don’t think anyone would’ve.”.Where Harriet Potter is Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes' soulmate





	1. ūnus

**Author's Note:**

> In this ‘verse Soulmarks (the full name of your soulmate/s) appear when the person turns fifteen in generic black letters, typewriter font. Even if a person is older they won’t receive their soulmark until their soulmate turns fifteen. They appear in the exact same place on the body for both mates.
> 
> P.S: I changed the placement of Harry’s Avada Kedavra mark from her forehead to the side of her neck just under her ear on the right side. 
> 
> P.P.S: Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine, if you find any kindly point them out and I'll fix them, thanks. And please read the tags if something sets you off abort!

Title from Coldplay - [Violet Hill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IakDItZ7f7Q)

 

.

_July 31 st _

 

Harry is fifteen when her soulmarks appear. She’s fifteen and it is the morning of July 31st and she almost doesn’t notice that anything is different until she stretches and her wrists burn. For a moment she freezes and slowly she pulls her hands close to her face and rotates her wrists to see the names etched on the outer parts of her skin.

The thin generic block letters are barely the length of her pinky finger and with a start Harry realizes, almost belatedly, that she has two names. One on each wrist.

With trepidation she carefully reads the names on her wrists. Mulling the names over she realizes that they are unfamiliar and instantaneously Harry is relieved. The mere idea of having the name of one of her friends – or even an enemy – instills a vague sense of terror in her.

Harry presses her lips together when she hears the telltale sounds of her aunt and uncle getting up. Hurriedly, she jumps up from her bed, strips out of her only pajamas and shoves her legs into the closest pants she can reach. Pulling her shirt on she reaches for the doorknob only to stop short.

Harry doesn’t swear often, but when she does, it is quiet, lengthy and creative; she is best friends with Ron Weasley so that has to account for something of her cursing vocabulary. She changes her top into one of the two long sleeved tops within reach and races down the stairs on tip toes, skipping the fourth step because it always squeaks, and rushes to the kitchen to begin breakfast.

It’s the hottest summer yet and her soulmarks have consigned her to long-sleeved tops.  

She almost didn’t think this summer could get any worse.

.

.

Steve has just taken down a HYDRA base in Reykjavík as they search for Bucky and Sam is just glad to see it over. The base is in the mountains and although it offers a beautiful sight, it’s fucking cold. Sam’s gear is short sleeved for optimal arm movement and not optimal for freezing cold winds. He also doesn't have that handy super soldier heat, so he feels every biting whip of wind against his skin.

They sit in the snow, not at all caring about the cold air slowly seeping and burning into their lungs, watching the HYDRA base alight with fire. Sam casts a weary glance at Steve.

“Natasha’ll get us another lead.”

Steve’s jaw clenches before he speaks, “This was the first lead we’ve had in months and he’s not here.”

Sam doesn’t really know what to say to that.

Give him torn down soldiers with raving PTSD and he can handle it. Throw 1940’s soulmates who were dead but not and has major issues with memories and is probably experiencing more cognitive dissonance than they’re really letting on and he’ll back away slowly please and thank you.

Steve sighs, after some time.

Quietly he says, “I just thought he’d be here, you know. This lead… it was different from the others. It was like he wanted to be found.”

Sam really wants to say something that’ll keep Steve going. Because no way anybody searching for their soulmate for a year with no results cannot have at least some thoughts of doubt and hopelessness creep in.

Instead, Sam punches Steve in the arm and stands up slipping only slightly. Steve, catching sight of the same familiar glint of silver that has evaded them thus far stands too, only much more graceful.    

Barnes walks towards them, slowly, cautiously. Sam kind of wants to open his mouth and start yelling profanities at the guy for having them go this far when he could’ve easily just met them at their hotel where it’s nice and warm. But, Samuel Wilson was raised better than that.

Barnes stops a meter before them.

Steve breathes out a hopeful, “Bucky?”

Barnes replies with a wry smile and self-conscious head nod, “Hey, punk.”

Nothing but the crackling of fire and the ice cold winds is heard. Sam totally would’ve thought there would have been at least some hugging, maybe a kiss or two. But there’s nothing but silence.

Barnes briefly looks towards Sam and Sam nods his head in acknowledgment. Barnes clears his throat and shifts his weight to his other foot as he starts to roll up the sleeve on his flesh arm.

“Thought maybe we should talk about this.”

Steve and Sam’s eyes are immediately drawn to the name written on the outside of Barnes’ wrist.

“Oh shit,” Slips softly out of Sam’s mouth before he can control himself. Astonished, Sam turns to Steve and says. “You have another soulmate.”

Steve, bewildered, pulls his gloves off and rolls up the sleeve of his left arm.

_Harriet Lily Potter_

Is imprinted in the exact same spot on the opposite side as it is on Barnes’.

.

.

_August 1 st _

 

“I’m cursed,” Harry declares into the telephone. “I _knew_ it.”

“ _Harry_.” Hermione breathes exasperated.

Bad enough her life’s gone to absolute shit, Voldemort is back, she saw Cedric die and she’s still stuck at the Dursley’s, but now she finds out her soulmates are superheroes. That’s just great. That’s just… fucking _peachy._ The one thing Harry could always count on was probably, most likely getting a relatively normal soulmate and now… now she has two superheroes from the 1940’s.

A quick search on Google in the library nearby yesterday had given her a plethora of information. Information that wasn’t all good for one of her soulmates.

What is her life?

“It’s not that bad.” Hermione tries to amend.

“Not that bad?” She whispers harshly, self-consciously pausing to see if she’s accidently woken anyone up. “One of them is an assassin.”

“A _brainwashed_ ex-assassin,” Hermione corrects. “The distinction is important, Harry, they’re your soulmates.”

“And that’s supposed to make everything better? Assassin on the streets, sexy in the sheets?”

Hermione stutters and Harry can almost feel her blushing through the phone.

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it.”

Harry can hear her own breath crackling through the phone when she sighs, “I’m sorry. I just… I never thought that this would happen to me.”

“You mean two super soldiers from the 1940’s as soulmates? I don’t think anyone would’ve.”

“No, I mean… this whole… thing.” Harry is awkwardly evasive but Hermione understands.

“Oh, Harry,” She hates the way Hermione says her name dripping with pity. “I know studies have shown that – no, listen to me – studies have shown that under certain circumstances a soulmark disappears or ceases to show up at all depending on circumstances like, trauma to the soul or committing murder or…”

Hermione trails off so Harry softly finishes her sentence.

“Experience of abuse or neglect.”

“But you’re different.” Hermione pushes on.

Harry snorts.

“I think that’s been established.” Harry rubs the cursed lightning bolt mark engraved into her skin on the side of her neck, just below her ear.

“I just mean, that even though the Dursley’s have been cruel to you, you still manage to find love in us, your friends, the Weasley’s, everybody who loves you for you.” Hermione patiently rephrases. “There’s absolutely no reason in the world why you shouldn’t have admirable soulmates. And your soulmates are admirable.”

Harry’s breath hitches and gets stuck in her throat.

She can hear a faint rustling from upstairs: aunt Petunia. Awkwardly trying to cough lightly to get rid of the knot lodged in her throat Harry whispers quietly back.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

She doesn’t wait to hear Hermione’s response, instead choosing to very carefully and quietly place the phone down and rush into the kitchen to start breakfast.

Aunt Petunia wanders in like a shadow not minutes later and pins her with a searching look.

“Who were you talking to?”

“No one, aunt Petunia.”

Harry’s rapid heartbeat thumps heavily.

“Don’t lie to me, girl.” Petunia’s voice is quiet but holds the threat of no food and Harry would never admit it out loud to them but she is hungry. She can already feel the effects of not eating; she can’t even remember the last time she ate a full meal.

“I’m not, aunt Petunia. It was probably the telly you heard.”

Harry gestures to the small television in the kitchen that Harry is – so graciously, as she is often reminded – allowed to turn on, the low muffled voices filling the silence. The news plays on repeat, the headline saying: Where is the Winter Soldier now? 1 year after D.C. The footage shows Captain America and the Winter Soldier fighting in America, Sam Wilson (the Falcon) the news provides, not far behind.

Aunt Petunia’s nostrils flair as if she can smell whether Harry is lying or not. In the end, she purses her lips and goes to make her morning tea. Hyperaware, Harry stealthily flexes her burning wrists. Never before had she been as grateful that the Dursley’s forgot her birthday, the last thing she needs is their greedy eyes on her soulmarks.

Harry is increasingly becoming talented at lying.

.

.

“So, how are we going to approach this?” Maria Hill lays her palms flat on the table and moves her gaze across all the avengers seated. Her eyes linger longer on the newest addition – Sargent James Buchannan Barnes, more recently known as the Winter Soldier.

He stares back, unflinching.

She is the first to move her gaze.

Tony snorts loudly before he speaks, “You mean the fact that Capsicle and Terminator here have a _fifteen year old_ soulmate?”  

“Stark!” Steve snaps in warning and throws a quick glare for good measure. This is an exceedingly delicate situation and to be honest, not only does he have no clue how to approach it, he kind of doesn’t want to.

Ever since he was fifteen it’s been Bucky. Younger even. He didn’t need – no, he didn’t _want_ another soulmate. There’s just no point when he has Bucky back.

“Well, I had Jarvis search for anyone named Harriet Lily Potter around the world, mind you, as soon as you called it in.” Maria draws the attention of the entire team and they all sit up at the thought of new information.

“What’d you find?”

Unsettled silence follows Bucky’s question. Steve turns a questionable look to spur Maria on.

“There were a few matches with the name,” Both Steve and Bucky tense with that information. “However, we cross-referenced date and possible time of birth thanks to Barnes’ observation of the appearance of the mark.”

Jarvis pulls up a picture.

Natasha directs her gaze to Maria the moment she glances at the picture, “That’s outdated. She has to be at least… ten in that picture.”

“She is.” Maria confirms. “It was her last official picture from school records. After she turned eleven, there seems to be barely any information about her. No recent school records, no hospital bills, not even any updated dental records. I tracked her movements from the last solid information Jarvis found about her but it seems like she only really exists a couple of months out of the year.”

Maria stares long and hard at both Steve and Bucky before she pulls up a more recent photo.

“Jarvis managed to get this from the underground camera.”

It’s not a very good picture. Slightly blurry, even with Jarvis refining the picture to the best of his ability (which is better than most Photoshop professionals). From what they could tell, parts of her which weren’t covered by other people, she is of average height, slender, messy black hair but it’s her eyes that catch the most attention.

Even with the low quality they are captivating.

She’s looking off to the side, most likely to a performer Bucky deduces, but the camera catches her eyes. The picture depicts her eyes to be a sort of dull green but Bucky knows that if he were to be standing in front of her they would be entirely alluring.

“What does she do during the other months of the year?” Steve clears his throat and shifts in his seat. Bucky knows he’s just as impacted as he is by the picture of her.

“Don’t know.”

Clint raises an eyebrow, “So, the girl is only accounted for a couple of months of the year and what, disappears during the rest? That basically spells suspicious.”

“I agree. Jarvis, you sure you checked everything out on her? No hospital, dental, police records… anything?” Tony glued to his phone asks and Jarvis replies.

“None, Sir. Everything I have found I’ve complied and given to Ms. Hill.”

A new file pops up on the tablets placed in front of each member of the table. Generic information and not much else.

Natasha frowns at the information and laces her fingers together, “She could be HYDRA.”

Her statement silences all noise and everyone turns to her.

“You can’t be serious.” Sam huffs out a weak disbelieving laugh. “She’s _fifteen._ ”

“I was younger than her when the KGB recruited me.” Natasha rebuts. “All personal information of her stops after she turns eleven; there aren’t even any school records. It’s the perfect age to start to manipulate and mold a child into the perfect weapon.”

Bucky barely refrains himself from flinching.

He wishes he could give back those particular memories.

“Even still, Natasha, HYDRA could never have predicted her to be Steve and Sargent Barnes’ soulmate. Soulmates can’t be forged or forced. If she really is Steve and Sargent Barnes’ soulmate than it’s by pure coincidence.” Bruce who had, up until that point been silent, mulling his thoughts over speaks raising a good point.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Tony inputs and tucks his phone away. “And if she’s HYDRA then she’s a danger to our team.”

“So what are we going to do?” Steve asks, he the tactician of the team and here he is with no clue where to begin.

“We go to England, of course.”

.

.

_August 3 rd _

 

Harry is restless.

She had dreamed of Cedric last night. Of the way the portkey hooked into her belly and took them to the graveyard. Of the way Cedric’s body twisted in the air, dead before he hit the ground. Of the way the stone scythe trapped her against Voldemort’s father’s grave.

Of Cedric’s voice.

_(Bring my body back, Harry. Bring my body back to my father.)_

She wakes up frightened and alone.

She tries to call Hermione at their usual time. The Grangers are naturally early risers, the Dursley’s are not, so it’s really the perfect time for Harry to sneak a phone call in once every week. She had called her the other day but the dream from the night before shook her.

Mrs. Granger answers the phone as per usual, but to her surprise informs her that Hermione had left yesterday, late afternoon to the Weasley’s.

Harry tells herself that Hermione probably sent her a letter when she got to the Weasley’s. It just hasn’t arrived yet.

Nevertheless, after finishing her chores by midday Harry ventures out. Normally, she would go the park. Somedays it’s full of children all on summer holiday, their parents chatting about the weather or politics or whatever they please while their children exhaust themselves. Harry sits, usually on the swings and pretends to be normal.

Pretends that she really is ok.

Most of the time it works. She’s particularly good at self-deception; she’s practically turned it into an art form.

Today, Harry decides to skip the park. It’s much too hot out and the stifling weather is not good with the long-sleeved top she has no choice but to wear. She heads to the closest library narrowly avoiding running into Dudley and his gang. She was not up to a day of Harry Hunting.

The cool air is an immediate relief. Lazily and uncaringly she piles her mane of hair into a bun and travels to the back of the nearly empty library. She grabs a nearby book from a random shelf, flips it open to a random page and sinks into the chair. The remaining sweat drips down the back of her neck as she flashes a smile at Mrs. Mills who in return glares balefully at her – the old librarian could give Madam Pince a run for her money, although Madam Pince does have quiet the arsenal of silencing spells up her sleeve. Mrs. Mills and aunt Petunia get along famously.

Harry folds her arms and rests her head in the crook of her elbow. The cool air is refreshing on her sweaty neck. Slowly she starts to drift.

Harry doesn’t allow herself to fall asleep; instead she teeters on the balance of consciousness and unconsciousness.

The last thing she needs is to have a vivid nightmare in the middle of the public library.

She loses track of time. People shift around her, Mrs. Mills drops by once or twice with a disapproving small cough that grates on Harry’s nerves but she doesn’t do much more than that. Suddenly, there seems to be a shift in the air. Harry’s eyebrows furrow against her arm as she pulls herself into a more awakened state.

The hair on the back of her neck rises.

Someone sits across from her.

And oh.

_Oh_

Nobody knows the origins of soulmates, of marks; it’s just something that has always existed. Like, when the universe came into existence so did soulmates. She’s heard, of course, that some people, especially witches and wizards, can feel when their soulmate or mates is near. But the descriptions were obscure and left Harry doubtful.

But this… this is something she doesn’t understand and simultaneously knows exactly what it is.

The person sitting across from her – her soulmate – doesn’t move. Harry, still with her head resting on the crook of her elbow is hyperaware and tries her best to control her breathing. Slowly, she sits up and takes in her soulmate.

The only thought that crosses Harry’s mind is that he most definitely won in the genetic lottery. He’s a little scraggly looking, with a bit of stubble and his hair brushes the top of his shoulders. His clothes are loose and large like he’s trying to hide his form but Harry can still see the well-defined muscles lurking underneath. His cap shades most of his face but his eyes, a steel grey are trained solely on her.

But he is, without a doubt, one of the most handsome men she’s seen.

“Harry.” She says after sometime and holds out her hand.

It is, of course, unnecessary for her to introduce herself, her name is forever printed on his arm but still she can practically hear aunt Petunia scolding her for her lack of manners.

He blinks at her, looks down at her outstretched hand, then back up. There’s a pause – a long one – and Harry wonders if maybe she’s misread the situation; maybe he didn’t find her to get to know her. Maybe he found her to… she doesn’t really know, the possibilities are endless and that scares her.

“Bucky.” He says, quietly drawing out the word. Slowly, his hand comes up, almost like he’s afraid of something but Harry can’t guess what.

“Huh?” Harry asks. Her soulmate… her soulmate _smirks,_ and it’s the first sign of emotion – an emotion other than impassiveness – that she’s seen from him.

“My name,” He says. “It’s Bucky. Bucky Barnes.”

Then his fingers are skimming along Harry’s palm, and Harry does not imagine the sharp intake of breath – the involuntary sound of surprise – from the both of them. Or the way Bucky doesn’t shake her hand as much as hold it, turn it over, squeeze like he’s trying to remember what touching is. Like he’s trying to burn the feeling of her hand in his into his memory forever.

.

.

Harry’s hand is warm.

It’s firm and slightly calloused underneath his. And small, so much smaller than his. Bucky wants to keep holding her hand and never let go. But he does, albeit a little reluctantly. It’s been so long since someone was willing to touch him, softly, kindly.

He didn’t exactly intend to meet her.

As soon as they had landed in London yesterday Steve and the rest of his team was off meeting with about ten of the best lawyers Stark hired.

“We’re going to draft a contract, if she really is our soulmate and not HYDRA.” Steve explained and Bucky had kind of wanted to punch him in the face for it.

He understood of course. Steve was famous now, Captain America and the Avengers, saviors of the Chitauri Invasion. And he supposes he is too, although he isn’t held in such a good light. But whatever had happened to just meeting your soulmate and figuring things out after?

Bucky remembers life before HYDRA the best.

Remembers Steve as skinny and sickly and his fear of losing him only increasing after he turned fifteen. Because then what they knew all along was only solidified.

Bucky remembers HYDRA too. Remembers what they did to his arm, to him. Remembers all the people they sent him to kill.

There are somethings he doesn’t remember. He only has vague impressions. One of Steve’s teammates looked at him the other day on the plane, looked at him like she expected him to know who she was.

Whenever Bucky looks at Natasha Romanoff he sees black tutus, pointed ballet shoes, guns and knives and the cold tundra. He sees small hands and bodies hitting the floor, correcting, redefining, shaping. But he doesn’t remember her.

“Interesting read?” He asks before he can stop himself, because she – Harry – is a mystery. At first when he realized what had happened she made Bucky _angry,_ for some reason. Not the kind of anger he’s gotten used to over the time he was awake, the anger at his handlers at HYDRA, but something different, something like confusion and frustration and… and curiosity.

He doesn’t want to scare Harry – he doesn’t want her to go away – he wants… Bucky doesn’t know what he wants, just knows that it’s sudden and intense.

Her gaze – and he was right to think her eyes would be much more alluring in person, Bucky’s trying not to drown in them – flickers down to the book. They widen slightly and Bucky automatically catalogs it as surprise.

She moves her gaze back to his with a small smile and half-hearted shrug, “I like birds. They can get away before things get bad. Auspicious beginnings, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah I think I do.”

She smiles again, small and shy.

They’re both silent for a while, just looking at each other. Bucky gazes at her eyelashes, the wisps of hair falling from her bun, the dip in hallow area of her throat. Of her, with the afternoon sun casting delicate shadows across her face, her eyes curious and not fearful forever imprinted in his memory.

“How did you find me?” She asks after some time.

“Steve has friends; they have ways of finding people.”

The corner of her lip quirks up, “Tony Stark you mean.”

His silence is enough of an answer for her.

“And is… Steve here too?” Bucky shakes his head no as her gaze drifts around the small library quickly as if Steve is hiding out behind one of the bookshelves.

Then she freezes.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, curious. He leans forward, wants to touch – put a hand on her shoulder, or… or grasp her hand – then he remembers that this is the first time they’ve actually met. It would be strange.

Bucky had left Stark’s house as soon as they landed and went to find her, unbeknownst to everyone else too busy drafting damn contracts. He had watched Harry all day yesterday. He hadn’t meant to, he thought he could talk to Steve, have a proper conversation because they haven’t really had one but it hadn’t exactly gone according to plan.

He doesn’t really know what to think of Harry. She lives with her aunt and uncle and cousin but isn’t particularly close to any of them. She makes breakfast and cleans and doesn’t say anything to them when she leaves. Doesn’t say anything when she returns either.

She hadn’t gone anywhere interesting the other day, just to the park nearby. She sat on the swing and stayed til dusk. She is most decidedly not HYDRA or part of any organization; he’s seen enough of them to spot them on sight.

“Uh, I should go back to my aunt and uncles,” Harry looks down and avoids his eyes, something tenses in Bucky and he feels… he feels something but he doesn’t know what it is, but it makes him feel sick. Makes him feel like there’s a pit in the bottom of his stomach. “It’s getting dark.”

Bucky presses his lips together and nods his head short and sharp.

Her eyes slowly drift up to his and she stares at him for a moment before whispering softly, “Bye.”

Then she’s gone.

Later, as he lies on top of the bed in the room Stark gave him to use he hears Steve wandering outside. Steve doesn’t know how to approach him, doesn’t know how to talk to him. He isn’t the same Bucky he was before. He’s Bucky with the Winter Soldier lurking on the underside of his jaw, in the hallow of his cheeks, in the slopes of his muscles just waiting to be let out.

Later, he realizes that the pit he felt in his stomach was worry.

He is worried for her.

But he doesn’t know why.

.

.

.

_August 4 th_

Harry hates summer.

She hates spending any time at all around the Dursley’s. Her days are repetitive and mind-numbing, she does her chores, eats (if she’s lucky) does more chores, sometimes went out to the park or the library, sleeps and repeats. Every day is the same and although she had kept in touch with Hermione, however scarce, it was more than she got from Ron or even Sirius. One letter from each of them at the beginning of summer and that was it.

The letter she told herself Hermione must have written when she arrived at the Weasley’s had not made it, will never make it.  

She admits, quietly to herself, that Hermione probably never wrote a letter at all.

Something in her hurts and an inexplicable anger brews inside her. All summer long and not a single scrap of news on what Voldemort’s doing, she has no doubt that Dumbledore must be at least telling Sirius and perhaps the Weasley’s of whatever he’s found. And what does she get? Absolutely nothing.

More and more Harry feels as if she could walk outside into the heat of the day and just disappear like smoke. And no one will care.

Well, someone might care.

Her soulmate was… interesting. They hadn’t spoken much but it was most definitely one of the most bizarre moments of her life. And she’s faced numerous dark creatures that she thinks not even an assassin of her soulmates caliber could face.

She chuckles in amusement.

Then wishes she hadn’t. Her lips automatically press together to stifle the muffled groan of pain. In light of meeting one of her soulmates she had lost track of time. Precious time she could’ve used to walk all the way back to Number 4 Privet Drive.

The sun had already set by the time she walked out of the library. She had walked a block or two wary of her surroundings incase her soulmate – Bucky – had decided to follow her home. She saw a flash of pink hair once or twice but no one who could be Bucky. So she had started to run.

When she was younger she had only helped aunt Petunia cook. Chopped the vegetables, put water in the pot, hand her this, hand her that, an assistant of sorts. When she got older Harry was put to making three course meals and some kind of dessert for dinner.

Aunt Petunia always makes her start at a specific time for dinner, but she was late.

When she got to the house she made sure to as quietly as she could open and close the door. Hopefully, praying to every God she knew, aunt Petunia wouldn’t be waiting for her in the kitchen and she could start dinner before aunt Petunia noticed she had started late.

Her prayers were not answered.

Aunt Petunia turned to her, eyes cold and menacing, showing a prediction of no food and most likely a beating.

Harry lowered her gaze and shuffled her feet around and waited to be addressed.

“What time are you supposed to start dinner?”

Harry cleared her throat lightly, “5 o’clock, aunt Petunia.”

“And what time is it now?”

Harry’s gaze flickered up from the floor to the kitchen clock quickly. Her face burned red when she saw the time, “Almost 6.”

“Exactly,” Aunt Petunia snapped. “Almost an hour late. And don’t think I don’t know where you’ve been. Mrs. Mills called me, sleeping in the library again I hear.”

She breathed in deeply, slowly. There it was again, the inexplicable anger rising like a tempted snake.

“I’m sorry, aunt Petunia. It won’t happen again.”

Harry’s apologies are recycled material she’s used all throughout her childhood and she never means a word of it. Perhaps she did, once, when she was younger and tried to be good, tried not to be a freak so that she might be accepted into the only family she had left. She learnt, later, that nothing she did would grant her acceptance, nothing at all.

“Get to work, girl! I’ve already started for you.”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice. She surged forward and started to work dreading the moment when uncle Vernon came back from work.

When uncle Vernon arrived, aunt Petunia dragged him off to speak with him about her transgressions. They sneered at her when she placed the food on the table; Dudley paid her no mind opting instead to as always dig into the food. She was then sent to her room with no food to wait until they were finished to start cleaning.

After cleaning up dinner, sneaking whatever scraps they left behind. Uncle Vernon disciplines her with his fists and belt right in the kitchen she just finished cleaning.

She had not seen aunt Petunia but the T.V was on loud and she could hear the thumping of music from Dudley’s room. Harry does not cry nor does she plead, like she used to when she was younger, she knows pain greater than the punches and kicks and the whipping of uncle Vernon’s belt.

She knows what it’s like under the Cruciatus Curse.

Harry sighs and forces her muscles to relax. The heat that day is nearly unbearable, there are no sounds of screaming kids, splashing water from pools or water-hoses. The heat makes it so no one could linger outside too long without fear of heatstroke. The only person left outdoors is a teenage girl lying flat on her back under neatly pruned hydrangea shrubs – which just so happens to be her.

Harry feels as if she is one giant bruise. Black and blue discoloration all up and down her arms and legs, and don’t even mention her torso. Now that really is one giant bruise. She didn’t have much in the way of clothes to hide the bruises, at least no clean clothes, so aunt Petunia had tossed her a couple of Dudley’s old shirts, both long and short sleeved, and a pair of jeans that morning. The jeans are torn, now dirty because of the soil, barely hanging on to her waist kept up only by a thick black belt wrapped several times around her waist. Dudley’s t-shirt is baggy and faded, some obscure band printed on the front from when he went through a punk phase. The long sleeved plaid button-up reluctantly pulled over but left unbuttoned and worn down converse with the sides all cracked.

Dressed like this she can see why she doesn’t endear to the neighbours, she can see why they all think her a delinquent. Her neighbours are the sort to think, much like aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon, that scruffiness ought to be punishable by law.

She wonders what they would think of Bucky.

Bucky, with his stubble and shoulder length hair and eyes that delved into her soul. Consuming.

Underneath the shrubs, the only way Harry could be seen is if aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon stick their heads out of the living-room window and look straight down into the flowerbed below.

A small garden snake slithers by but pays her no mind, it’s seen her enough cooling down under the shrubs to know she won’t bother it and in turn it won’t bother her. Although, she did just get rid of its nest on aunt Petunia’s insistence so she’s not so sure how it would regard her now. Hidden, is where she sees a slick black car pull up to Number 4 Privet Drive.

For a moment, Harry’s jaw drops and she rolls over onto her stomach before stilling at the sight. The car doors open and a woman in a dark blue pencil skirt and button up steps out of the car. Her light blue eyes sweep over everything and they entirely miss Harry’s hiding position. Not long after a man, a tall man who is, Harry wants to say ridiculously muscular steps out after her. Like the woman he too moves his eyes over the garden but they linger a little longer where Harry lies.

And she knows.

She _knows_ that that is Steve.

She can feel it somewhere in her chest and something lights up.

She thinks he can feel it too because his body kind of deflates, like he was holding himself tense for too long and he exhaled and with that exhale his body breathes _soulmate._

They walk up the pathway and knock on the door. Harry bites her lower lip and ducks her head.

Oh God, they’re here because she saw Bucky yesterday. They’re here because Bucky’s probably still on the run and she just assumed that he came with them, which was how he got information on how to find her, when really he could’ve just stolen the information.. Merlin, she’s stupid.

From her position she can hear uncle Vernon mumble about ungrateful children and not being there to open doors. Harry rolls her eyes, ungrateful alright she thinks sarcastically as her ribs pull uncomfortably.

They might or might not be fractured.

For all of uncle Vernon’s grumbling it is aunt Petunia who opens the door.

“Yes?” Her voice is sickly sweet and breathless with excitement when she realizes just who is standing before her front door and it makes Harry roll her eyes.

“Good afternoon,” The woman greets in a distinctly American accent. Harry can see aunt Petunia recoil in surprise still. She’s never done very well with adjusting to things that were different, Harry case in point. “My name is Maria Hill, this is Steve Rogers,” Steve nods his head in greeting when aunt Petunia sweeps her eyes to him and weirdly all over him. Harry shivers slightly in disgust. “We’re looking for Harriet Lily Potter.”

Harry feels as if her heart has dropped into her stomach.

And all at once the excitement aunt Petunia had at meeting a superhero is snuffed out of her like a candle and replaced with a look of extreme aversion. Aunt Petunia goes from sweet to closed-off and offended. Offended to be associated with Harry that is.

“Has she done something wrong? She is a bit of a troublemaker,” Aunt Petunia’s voice is hard and Harry can see the twitching curtains from her neighbours houses that aunt Petunia herself has no doubt caught sight of. “You’ll have to forgive her; she’s not very well, up there.”

Aunt Petunia finishes with a small tap to the side of her head and a low whisper. Like mental health is something to be ashamed of, well she supposes it is in the Dursley household. Another layer of freakishness to add to her name.

Steve’s eyebrows furrow perplexed as he speaks, “She hasn’t done anything wrong, ma’am. We’re just here to see if you, as her guardian, would allow us time to talk to her for a bit.”

“Oh.” There’s a moment of almost disappointed silence, like aunt Petunia would just love it if she got into trouble and had her whole life ruined. Jokes on her, her life is already in ruins. “Harriet!”

Harry can’t stop the violent flinch at aunt Petunia’s bark and the hydrangea shrubs rustle with her movement giving her position away. She stands clumsily, tripping half-way. Half because of the immense pain she feels every time she moves – or breathes – and half because of the garden snake that had decided to coil around her foot. Revenge, she thinks, for removing it’s nest.

“ _Stupid snake._ ” She hisses to it quietly in parseltongue.

It opens its mouth and if a snake could smile Harry would say it’s bearing it’s nonexistent teeth in a not so friendly smile.

She hastily brushes her hair back tucking strands behind both ears. Aunt Petunia has gone slightly pale at the sound of her hissing, Steve and the woman – Maria – both watch amusedly. Probably thinking nothing of her display.

Aunt Petunia clears her throat to regain her bearings, “What are you doing down there –?”

She cuts herself off prematurely from saying girl and Harry wonders if it’s considered rude to other people. She wouldn’t know, she’s always been girl or freak or not even properly acknowledge with a name but with a sound like some kind of animal in the household. She thinks that that might’ve been the first time she’s heard aunt Petunia actually say her name.

“Pruning, aunt Petunia.” She replies, holding up the clippers for display snipping them twice for emphasis.

Steve and Maria share a look.

“Harriet?” Steve asks cautiously as he takes in her features.

She’s fairly tall he supposes, coming up to just below his shoulders. Her features are delicate, high cheekbones, small nose, long eyelashes and her eyes… his breath catches for a moment when they turn to him. He doesn’t think he’s seen anything greener.

“Harry,” She corrects and holds out her hand. “Harry Potter.”

“Steve Rogers.” He replies and takes hold of her outstretched hand.

Steve wants to say that he doesn’t feel the same tenderness that settles in his heart like when he touched Bucky after the first time their soulmarks appeared. But then he’d be lying.

“Maria Hill.” A hand is thrust at Harry and startled she lets go of Steve’s hand to shake hers.

“Harry.” She says once more growing awkward.

“Well… _Harry,_ ” Maria emphasizes her name and throws a meaningful look at Steve. Harry has no idea what that means and she doesn’t know if she wants to. “I’m sure you heard but we were wondering if you would join us. There are some things we would like to discuss especially in light of things.”

“In light of things?” Aunt Petunia echoes curiously and both Maria and Steve turn to her. “What do you mean ‘in light of things’?”

Harry’s heart seizes up. Today is just not a good day for her poor poor heart.

“Harry’s soul-”

Harry cuts Steve off with a loud and ambiguous noise. It’s embarrassing but does the trick because their attention turns towards her before Steve could finish the word soulmarks.

“It’s perfectly alright.” She rushes when she notices Maria open her mouth to say something. “I can go, aunt Petunia, right?”

Aunt Petunia purses her lips and switches her gaze from person to person – probably wondering what the bloody hell American superheroes want to do with her – before firmly resting on her, “I… suppose it’s alright, just be back before 5 and _no funny business._ ”

Harry manages to force out a smile, she’s sure looks entirely fake and more of a grimace than an actual smile. ‘Funny business’ was always code for magic, or rather her abnormal freakishness.

“Great, let’s go.” Maria announces and immediately starts walking to the car.

Harry leans the clippers on the window sill – she’ll get them later, maybe – and steps out of the shrubs. If she so happens to accidentally kick the garden snake well it’s its own fault, shouldn’t have tried to trip her. Steve patiently waits while she wrestles herself out of the shrubs and starts to walk her to the car nodding a polite goodbye to aunt Petunia.

For appearances only Harry turns back and offers a halfhearted wave.

Aunt Petunia’s face is one of scandal. To her normal sensible upstanding citizen ways a brush off or uncaring goodbye is considered rude. Maria Hill did not even acknowledge aunt Petunia before leaving. Maria Hill is Harry’s new favorite person.

Harry slides into the back seat and sits directly behind Steve in the passenger seat. Maria, who’s driving, turns the air conditioner on full blast and starts to drive. The drive is silent and once out of Little Whinging Harry realizes they’re going to into the heart of central London. Of course, she thinks, Stark has a building there.

The drive is quiet and Harry does nothing but stare out the window. She doesn’t have to look at Steve to know that every once in a while his eyes flicker up to the mirror to look back at her. She meets his gaze once and he quickly looks away staring firmly ahead of him. Her lips involuntarily quirk into an ironic smile, it reminds her of how no one would look her in the eyes during second year, as if she was the basilisk ready to kill them with her sight alone.

When they reach Starks tower – she briefly wonders how many towers Tony Stark has around the world – they walk quietly inside and take an elevator up. Curiously, no one pushes a button for the floor it just starts moving. Once at the apparent chosen floor Harry is escorted into a room.

Her first thought is: _Oh shit._

Her second thought is: I’m going to end up giving myself a heart attack.

Her heart predictably speeds up at the sight of a blank white room with no windows but a large mirror on one side – probably a two way mirror – and a table with two chairs opposite each other. Harry’s seen enough crime shows she sneaks peaks of on the telly that Dudley used to like to watch to know that this probably won’t end well for her. The door closes ominously behind her and Harry turns to see that she is alone. Cautiously she walks to sit in the chair facing the mirror and patiently waits for somebody to start interrogating her.

She’s about to be interrogated by the Avengers, this day couldn’t possibly get any stranger.

.

.

“She’s…” Tony doesn’t exactly know what he was going to say to describe her but the look Barnes’ throws him makes him settle with something safe. “Small.”

“She is isn’t she.” Bruce states walking closer to the two-way mirror where everybody was standing. Bruce frowns, the clothes she wears swallows her so Bruce can’t really gain much from her obscured figure but he thinks that she might be too skinny.

“Is this really necessary?” Sam speaks up from the back, arms crossed, frown firmly in place.

“Like I said before, with the little information we have on her there’s a possibility that -”

“There is _no way_ that she’s HYDRA.” Sam cuts Natasha off.

“I mean just look at her!” Sam walks closer and unfolds his arms to emphasize the girl on the other side. “Like Tony said she’s tiny, I don’t think she could take anyone in this room and survive. It doesn’t even look like she has any training at all.”

Sam raised good points. Harry is small, delicate features, and although they couldn’t garner much from her physique – is she weak, is she strong, her clothes cover too much – her posture was certainly telling. No one with any type of training would slouch resting a bored look on one propped up fist drawing vague symbols onto the table with her fingertip (except maybe Clint).

“Still, she is fifteen. We have no idea who she’s told about her soulmarks, we have no idea if she’ll go to media about them, we simply have no idea,” Maria says flipping once more through the lack of information they have on her. “She’s a loose cannon.”

“So who’s going to be interrogating her?” Clint asks sipping at his coffee.

“It’s not an interrogation.” Natasha steps closer to the mirror. “And I will be talking to her.”

Clint snorts.

“Right, Nat. You the master at manipulation and interrogation not going to use those skills on a fifteen year old girl.”

“A fifteen year old girl who has the names of a member of our team and one of the most deadly men in the world.” Natasha adds and turns to raise an eyebrow at Clint before addressing the rest of the room. “Does anyone else have a problem with me trying to keep us safe from what could potentially be a disaster?”

Silence is her answer.

“Good.” She says and makes her way to the door but not before catching Barnes’ eye. There’s a look in his eyes, one she remembers distinctly from when he was Yasha in the red room. It turns her blood cold.

It is a look of warning.

.

.

The girl avoids looking her directly in the eyes.

Her eyes instead stay firmly fixed upon her hands underneath the table.

Natasha is hardly ever wrong when it comes to her instincts. That’s what she thinks made her a great SHIELD agent, a great Avenger, an even better Black Widow than her predecessor. She also knows when to accept when she is wrong, and she just might be wrong about the girl.

Closer, and upon further critic, she is small. And for a moment she reminds Natasha of a little girl she knew in the red room. A girl she had no choice but to kill. Kill or be killed echoes softly in her mind. She is slender and wiry, Natasha can see the muscle, the strength in her movements but she seems to have more of an athletic build rather than one made to kill.

When she finally meets her eyes Natasha thinks: yes, she is not HYRDA.

This girl, who wears her emotions in her eyes, could never be HYDRA.  

“You have the names of Steve Rogers and James Barnes on your wrists.” She intones, narrowing her eyes on the cuffs of the too large button-up.

The girl stares at her defiantly, a certain reckless temerity in her bright eyes.

She purses her lips, “Are you going to arrest me?”

“No.” Natasha returns. “It isn’t a crime to have soulmarks. We just want to know who you’ve told.”

“I’m not telling you anything.” She refutes in retaliation. Privately, she is somewhat impressed by her tenacity to contradict her. Lesser people would have told her everything by now, especially with the look she pins on the girl after her statement, then again, she is the soulmate of Rogers and Barnes should Natasha really expect anything less from her?

“Why not?” She questions friendly curiosity coating her words.

“Telling you who I’ve told will only guarantee putting them in the exact same position as I am currently in.” She states, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not going to subject my friend to an hour of waiting around and an interrogation from a slightly terrifying woman.”

“Terrifying?” Natasha echoes amusedly her lips twisting of their own accord into a smile.

“ _Slightly_ terrifying _._ ” She emphasizes as if the difference is vast and she’s faced worse than the Black Widow.

Normal people are usually terrified of her. Not slightly terrified but hair raised on the black of their necks, sweat dripping from every orifice, terrified.

“So you have told someone.” Natasha brings them back to topic.

She frowns then, only just realizing her slip and green eyes warily shift to her, “Yes.”

“Are you close to this particular friend?”

She says nothing to this but Natasha can see the girls jaw clench in anger. Yes, they are very close.

Natasha sighs.

“We need to know who you’ve told so that we can include them in the contract seeing as your marks are of two… relatively famous people.”

She blinks rapidly, something like apprehension and recognition flittering through her expressions. Finally, she settles into vague neutrality. “A… A contract?”

“Yes. To protect not only Steve and James but you as well.” Natasha peers imploringly. “Knowledge of your soulmarks could put you in great danger. I’m sure you know of the organization called HYDRA?”

She nods her head distractedly.

Biting her lip she hesitantly asks, “So, who here knows?”

“All the Avengers, Steve’s friend Sam Wilson and our Director of Security Maria Hill.” Natasha affirms.

“Oh.” Eyes wide she blinks once, twice then looks away uncomfortable. She seems to come to a conclusion, however and returns her gaze back to Natasha earnest. “My friend is… she’s gone away on holiday. But I know her, extremely well and I know she would never tell anybody unless I explicitly say so.”

“How are you so sure?”

She blinks confused for a moment then smiles.

“Because I trust her.”

Natasha’s cheek twitches and the girls gaze falls to it immediately. And she looks, almost surprised like she’s just realized Natasha’s not a robot.

“You haven’t told your aunt and uncle.”

It is a statement not a question. Maria and Steve and told them as much when they got back, in fact they observed the girl actively trying to keep it a secret.

She snorts and rolls her eyes.

“You’re not particularly close then.” Natasha articulates and raises an eyebrow as she murmurs back softly: understatement of the last fourteen years.

Natasha spends a second longer studying the girl before standing and leaving without a word. She can sense the confusion pouring from the girl at her abrupt leave.

When she walks back into the room on the other side of the two-way mirror everybody turns to her.

“Well?” Stark prompts.

“She’s not HYDRA.” She declares.

Sam snorts, “Anyone in their right mind could tell you that.”

She throws a halfhearted exasperated look at Sam, “She may not be HYDRA, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t hiding something.”

“What do you think it could be?” Steve asks arms folding eyes firmly fixed on the girl sitting in the room still staring at the door Natasha just walked out of.

“I don’t know.”

.

.

Harry is dragging her feet, and she knows it. After another hour of sitting around waiting, Maria Hill had walked in and gestured her to follow. They are to apparently meet with the other avengers and a lawyer to discuss the contract. She is dreading this, but it isn’t a conversation they can keep for later.

It’s silent when she walks into the room behind Maria.

Tony Stark is the first to introduce himself; politely quite surprisingly though she does catch him nervously avoiding looking directly at Bucky so perhaps he had something to do with the unusual politeness. He introduces everyone else and then the lawyer. The lawyer is older than everyone else, his head of white hair fluttering contrasting to everyone else’s.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Miss Potter. My name is Hamish Adler.” The man greets shaking her hand. And try as he might exuberance still leaks noticeably into his voice.

“Likewise.” She smiles if a little confused at his sudden excitement and wording of his previous sentence. An _honor_ to meet _her_?

“Of course.” He says fading out into an odd sort of silence.

The other avengers seem to mimic her confusion. Each of them resolutely staring at Mr. Adler with confusion and in some cases a new sense of suspicion. Mr. Adler clears his throat and gestures for them to sit down and begin. He then, in Harry’s opinion, makes the mistake of glancing at her neck.

Only it isn’t so much as her neck he glances at as it is her infamous scar.

He catches her eyes after and Harry feels her face start to burn. She doesn’t know whether it’s embarrassment or anger. Surreptitiously she moves her hair to hide her scar.

Of course, the lawyer who just so happens to be a part of the team to write up the contract is a Wizard. Or at least a Squib. With critical eyes she checks the sleeves of his jacket, the pockets and even makes to pretend drop her pen so that she can peek under the table to check the edges of his pants. He doesn’t seem to be hiding a wand anywhere. But that still doesn’t mean that this information won’t make its way back to Dumbledore or worse Voldemort.

She presses her lips together when he announces that he is a large part of the creation of the contract. Based on what the avengers think it should be comprised of.

Harry makes a show of focusing her gaze on whoever was speaking, which was mostly Tony Stark and Maria Hill, with a few intercepts from Sam Wilson, whom Harry is steadily growing to like. But her attention is fixated upon Mr. Adler.

While they’re discussing the more mundane parts of the contract such as her safety and whatnot – she wonders what they would think if they knew her life was in danger before her soulmarks had appeared – Harry tries to think of the last name Adler.

Sirius had tried over summer last year to instill some pureblood lessons. She had of course tried to avert the lessons, Hermione’s a muggleborn as was her mother why on earth would she need to know these things. However, her father as Sirius so eloquently put was a pureblood from a prominent family. Those lessons were imperative if she is to become the representative for House Potter when she’s older.

No matter how hard she tries she just can’t think of where Adler is from. Of which side of the war his family is on. Is he dark or is he light?

The question plagues her and she absentmindedly bites her lip, brows furrowed pretending to read the contract.

When it’s finally over Harry obediently signs her name on all the dotted lines, Bucky and Steve’s were already pre-signed. She says a quite goodbye and leaves the room with Maria Hill and Mr. Adler escorting her. She glances quickly through the glass at Steve and Bucky but they do not look at her.

And all at once, the distraction she used dissipates and hurt stabs her in the chest. In her heart.

Both Bucky and Steve flinch and she turns away.

When they’re at the elevator she turns to Maria, “Ms. Hill why doesn’t Mr. Adler escort me down? It would seem counterproductive for you to have to go all the way down then back up again.”

Maria raises an eyebrow at Mr. Adler in question when he nods his head she turns back to her, “We’ll keep in touch, Harry. Try not to get into trouble.”

Harry barely refrains from snorting. Her life is nothing but trouble. They nod goodbye as Harry and Mr. Adler step into the elevator. When the doors close she rounds upon Mr. Adler mouth open ready to confront him.

He turns to her with a sharp look, “Not here. Later.”

Harry purses her lips and nods her head. She was just introduced to Tony Stark’s AI so she shouldn’t be surprised if there are camera’s everywhere.

The ride down to ground level and the quick walk out the tower and a street over is short in retrospect. But painstakingly long in Harry’s opinion. Mr. Adler leads her to a diner across from the tower.

“You know me.” She accuses lowly, eyes hard staring at him.

His demeanor which was nothing but modest and polite then transforms into an aristocratic aura, “Yes. However, I am not on You-Know-Who’s side. I assure you.”

Her eyes narrow, “How can I be sure? Adler is a pureblood family deep within the dark side, is it not?”

He smiles and it’s twisted and full of loathing, “Yes, it is. And I suppose I would be dark if I was a Wizard and yet I am not as I’m sure you know Squibs are not so reverent in the pureblood perspective. You can put away your wand now, Miss Potter.”

Frowning she slides her wand, which was previously pointed at him discretely under the table, back up the sleeve of Dudley’s shirt.

She observes him for a moment. She had considered him to be a Squib but with his admittance she is unsure of what to do. At last she asks, “What do you want from me?”

He quirks an amused eyebrow, “Nothing, Miss Potter. It was pure coincidence that Mr. Stark had chosen me as team leader to write up the contract. I had not connected the person in the contract to you until you had walked through the door.”

She frowns further. Now, she really is at a loss.

“So what happens now?”

Just as he is about to respond a waitress cuts in, “You two gettin’ anything?”

“Coffee. Black.” Mr. Adler responds slightly peeved by the continuous popping of the waitresses gum. Harry shakes her head no when the waitress turns to her and shrugs seemingly bored before walking away, “Honestly, some of these muggles.”

Harry raises her eyebrows at his statement.

“You can take the boy out the pureblood world; you can’t take all the pureblood lessons out of the boy.” He says a little bit stiffly. “As for what happens now, that’s entirely up to you Miss Potter. I take it you were distracted and had not fully read the contract?”

Harry flushes a little and mutters lowly embarrassed, “A little.”

“The contract merely restrains you from telling anybody. Your friend whom you had mentioned is exempt from the contract based on your inherent trust in her.” He smiles at her surprise. “Mr. Rogers insisted.”

She says nothing, instead focuses on the coffee then placed in front of Mr. Adler.

After some time he speaks a little restrained, “I know the contract may seem as if you are being cut off from your soulmates but that is not its intention.”

“I know. It’s for not only my protection but theirs as well.” She says sardonically.

“They do not know of the magical world. They do not know what you’ve been through, what is currently going on.” He speaks quietly eyes moving surreptitiously around the diner. “In their minds this is the most dangerous thing that can happen to you.”

Suddenly a small dash of hope ignites in her chest and she focuses on what he said, “Are you saying you believe me?”

He looks at her softly like she’s stupid to think otherwise, “My dear, who in Merlin’s right mind would lie about the Dark Lord.”

If a smile could be blinding then Harry’s has surely reached it and then it is dashed away with a single thought, “I suppose that means you speak with Professor Dumbledore.”

“Only occasionally, my dear and only about muggle-wizard integration.”

“Does that mean you won’t tell him about my soulmarks?”

“Your soulmarks are your own business, Miss Potter.” He pauses contemplative. “Well, with the exception of this slightly peculiar match others are aware. You should keep in mind how the wizarding world regards soulmates and you’ll find yourself with your answer.”

Harry mulls his words over.

Soulmarks having used to be revered by every Witch and Wizard, used to be given the utmost consideration. Then as history had showed (about the only lesson everyone had stayed awake through, even Professor Binns seemed slightly surprised) soulmarks were hidden, sometimes even banished off a person when half-blood and muggleborns rates started to grow.

The purebloods had obviously wanted to keep their line pure, however, if given the same consideration soulmarks were before they couldn’t very well do that when their soulmark was that of a half-blood or muggleborn. And although prejudices had waned over the last few centuries –only the old pureblood families followed the old ways – tradition prevailed and soulmarks are kept secrets. To the point of never speaking of them unless directly with the person and using glamor charms to cover them up so that a person looks like a blank.

“Goodbye, Miss Potter.” Mr. Adler says at length. “It seems to be approaching 5 o’clock the time in which you have to return home if I am not mistaken.”

Harry nods her head.

“Goodbye.” She says and only speaks up again just as he’s about walk out the diner. “And… thank you. For believing me, I mean. I hadn’t gotten _the Prophet_ for long but the few I did, well, it wasn’t so favorable.”

Mr. Adler smiles, “That is no hardship of mine, Miss. Potter. Until we meet again, good luck.”


	2. duo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the Kudos and Comments! I am genuinely shocked by the response to the first chapter, I really just wrote this on a whim and the first chapter took two weeks to write and I just didn't really know where to go from there so I hope this chapter does justice and lives up to the expectation of the last chapter. 
> 
> Again, I have no plot or anything conjured up in my mind I just really wanted to read a relationship soulmate trope between the three of them with a lot angst. If anyone has any ideas or wants me to insert something please comment and i'll try my best to get back to you.

_._

_August 6 th_

Bucky is avoiding him.

Of all the outcomes he had imagined once Bucky was back in his life, this is not one of them. Steve wants to talk to him, to make everything better, to go back to the way they used to be. Effortless like breathing. But Sam says to give him time and Steve can’t help but wonder how much time is needed.

How much longer does he have to wait?

It’s early morning and he has just gotten back from his run, the change in scenery is nice although the familiar sights of London bring back memories and a wistfulness for more familiar times. He’s in the kitchen about to start breakfast when he catches sight of Bucky hedging the area from the corner of his eye.

A warm feeling is ignited in his chest and Steve is renewed with a sense of hope. Perhaps this is it, the moment Bucky stops avoiding and opens up to him. The moment everything goes back to the way it was.

His hope is dashed away when Bucky speaks.

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

Steve falters for a moment. Unsureness creeping into even his most subtle movements.

“Done what, Buck?”

His lips turn down. An all too familiar look of disappointment and sadness is streaked across Bucky’s face. Steve has been on the receiving end of that look so many times from when he used to get beat up in countless alleys, he can close his eyes and picture with perfect clarity every inch of that look.

“We shouldn’t have made that contract. We shouldn’t have signed it.” He pauses; Steve feels a sharp chill in his chest. “We shouldn’t have _made her_ sign it.”

.

.

Harry honestly doesn’t know how Dudley hasn’t been arrested for some sort of criminal misconduct yet.

She sits in a muggle diner across from the only shopping duplex in Little Whinging. And stares at Mark Evans little bruised face. Dudley, fifteen, with the body of an overweight boxing champion had beaten up poor little Mark Evans, who looks all of his ten years old with his knobby knees and impish grin.

 _– It’s just boys being boys, Patricia_ –

Harry wants to march up to their table and say: No, Mr. Evans. It is not boys being boys, it is a cruel fifteen year old boy against a ten year old. Your son, don’t you care?

But she doesn’t. Because they wouldn’t believe her.

Because in Little Whinging, _freak_ and _delinquent_ are synonymous with Harry Potter.

“Harry, darling, been a while!”

Her gaze moves from Mark to the waitress standing next to her table. Anna, she had met dashing into the diner when she was nine trying to hide from Dudley and his gang when they had chased her all the way from school. About one of the few people she’s met and actually liked during her childhood.

She supposes not everyone in Little Whinging sees her as a freak and delinquent.

“Yes, it has.” She says and stands to hug the older woman.

If Harry were made to describe Anna’s hugs. She would say that it’s like being covered in your favorite blanket with a good book and hot chocolate on a crisp winter day. Warm and protective and loving. She imagines that is what her mother must have felt like, what she would feel like if she were still alive.

Anna laughs patting her arms, “Come now, I was exaggerating it hasn’t been that long. You saw me last summer before you left for school.”

Harry pulls away flushing slightly at the look she receives. Perhaps her desperation and loneliness is clinging to her like a sticking charm, showing the world what she feels.

“Sorry.” She mutters. Anna waves her off and tells her that she’ll be out soon with her usual.

Gratefully, Harry sits to wait for her meal. When Harry was eleven and set eyes upon her Gringotts vault, her first thought was that she wouldn’t have to go another day without food. She thought that the money her parents had left her – centuries of Potter galleons – would be enough to keep her fed for the rest of her life and then some. Of course, when she hadn’t expressed hunger for the two weeks the Dursley’s neglected to give her food the summer before her second year they had become suspicious.

Harry, not wanting any of the Dursley’s to know of her new found inherited riches had decided that she, unfortunately, would have to go back to the pain of hunger lest the Dursley’s reach with greedy hands for her inheritance. However, occasionally she indulges and buys a few meals of her favorite food. She has become quite the actor in expressing hunger even when she’s gorged herself on waffles and orange juice.

Her eyes drift to the window spread across the entire side of the diner and watches Mark Evans and his family leave. The little boy catches her eye briefly and she smiles tentatively, understandingly. He quickly looks away.

She blinks and sighs. She doesn’t have to turn her head to know that Bucky’s slipped into the chair opposite hers as she stares at Mark’s retreating back.

“Do you like sneaking up on people?” She asks after some time.

She turns to him when he doesn’t speak. There’s a look in his eyes, scrutiny. She’s been scrutinized before but… never this intensely. Her breath catches – she tenses.

“It’s habit.” He speaks noticing her sudden uncomfortableness. “They trained me to be silent. Like a ghost.”

She’s still tense but her curiosity ends up eating away her uncomfortableness.

“… They?” Is asked cautiously, quietly.

He smiles. It’s not a smile Harry likes. It’s full of hatred and defeat.

“HYDRA.” He replies simply and he doesn’t have to say anymore for her to understand. She had skipped over the more gruesome parts that had come up when she searched for him and Steve in the library but she understood the gist of it.

“One plate of waffles and fresh orange juice for my favorite customer.” Anna interrupts brightly placing her food down in front of her. “Anything else, love?”

“No thanks.” She lopsidedly grins at Anna, her stomach growling at the sight and smell of her food.

“What about you?” Anna turns to Bucky but he shakes his head no and Anna nods walking off. But not before looking over her shoulder to shoot a look at Harry widening her eyes as they move quickly to Bucky. A teasing grin pulling at her lips. She mouths: introduce me.

Harry rolls her eyes smiling and grabs the maple syrup. She pours the syrup into the squares in a diagonal pattern. There’s no point in eating waffles if you’re not going to do it right and make patterns.

“I take it you like waffles.” Bucky states and the corner of his lip is tugged up into an amused smile.

Suddenly, Harry feeling all of her fifteen years flushes looking at her patterned waffle wondering if it looks childish. She clears her throat trying to adopt a more serious tone, “Yes. They’re the best kind of breakfast meal.”

“Isn’t it a little late for breakfast?”

“I strongly believe that there’s never a bad time for a breakfast meal.” Harry pauses in cutting her waffles – into perfect squares, mind you – and stares up in faux anxiety at Bucky. “I do hope you’re a waffle person.”

“Sorry, it’s pancakes for me.” He shrugs not sorry at all, a sincere grin threatening to break out.

Harry forlornly shakes her head, “How dare you.”    

He laughs then, a deep baritone sound that makes the hair on her arms stand. She notes absentmindedly that it contrasts sweetly with her higher girly laughter. They fall quiet after and Harry starts to put an indent in her food. She feels it then, the big fat hippogriff in the room. Beating its wings, snapping its beak, demanding attention.

Harry is all too eager to ignore it, but Bucky seems to have other plans.

“I’m sorry.”

That is… not at all what Harry is expecting.

She pauses swallowing her waffle thickly. And stares up at him in clear confusion, “What’s there to be sorry for?”

Then it’s his turn to be confused, “The contract -”

“You don’t have to apologize.” She cuts him off, firm. “I understand what it’s for.”

Bucky pauses taking in her words. He seems to contemplate them and with eyes narrowed asks, “What exactly do you think it’s for.”

She looks at him like he’s asinine. Hadn’t they gone over this during the meeting, sure Harry was more than distracted by Mr. Adler potentially being a Wizard (a suitable distraction from her slow spiral into heartbreak – she doesn’t even know them, she shouldn’t be heartbroken) but she was sure he and Steve had their full attention on what was happening.

Regardless, she answers him anyway, “Your protection and Steve’s too. Obviously.”

Bucky frowns immediately noticing how she excluded herself from that protection.

.

.

Bucky opens his mouth. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, doesn’t even think about it just knows that he wants her to know that the contract isn’t about him at all. Not about him or about Steve. But before he speaks someone calls his name.

“Bucky!” Steve is by their table in seconds.

Harry looks up wide-eyed at his sudden appearance.

“What are you doing? You can’t just run off like that someone could have seen you.” Steve admonishes him and Bucky merely glares him before cutting his eyes across the table with a much softer look than Steve has received ever since Bucky returned.

“Harry.” Steve states quietly with surprise when he looks over.

She smiles, a little strained, nodding her head, “Steve.”

“Sam.” Interrupts a voice and a hand is offered to Harry. “I don’t think we’ve officially met,” Bucky means to interject that technically speaking Tony Stark had introduced them but Sam cuts him off before he can even open his mouth. “Tony’s lame introduction and snarky comment doesn’t count.”

Harry giggles quietly and shakes his hand.

“Don’t believe in anything Tony Stark says about me. It’s all lies.” Sam says seriously and sits down.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She says with a friendly smile.

Bucky scowls, “We were in the middle of a conversation.”

“I’m sure Harry doesn’t mind extra company.” Sam grins cheekily and Steve sits (although he looks a little reluctant). “Oh, are those waffles? I love waffles.”

Harry smiles indulgently at Sam and shoots Bucky a look full of amusement.

Steve clears his throat, “What were you talking about?”

“The contract.” Harry replies before Bucky can say anything. Steve shoots him a look. The conversation, and that’s putting it lightly, it was more yelling than talking, from that morning echoes loudly in their minds. “I was just explaining to Bucky that I understand what it’s for.”

Steve’s face smooths out in relief, “Oh, that’s good. Bucky had some… reservations earlier.”

She smiles twisted, eyes moving everywhere around them never quite making eye contact, “You don’t have to worry. I won’t compromise either of you.”

Bucky tenses at her wording.

Sam stops eyeing her food and Steve… even Steve stares at her with confusion.

“Harry.” Sam starts strongly, warningly leaning forward, most likely to deliver one of the many lectures Bucky’s heard since he’s joined them. But her reaction is not what any of them is expecting.

Harry flinches, an instinctive thing, like she’s heard that tone before, like there’s something vicious attached to the end of that tone, and tucks all her limbs close to her body like she’s… like she’s trying to protect herself. The cutlery drops onto her nearly empty plate cutting the silence sharply.

They all stare wide-eyed but Harry’s is the only one whose eyes reflect panic.

She swallows thickly and stuffs her hands in the pockets of her oversized shirt. Sam’s gaze seems caught on her collar bone and Bucky’s gaze sweeps down her neck to rest in the same area. There is an edge of a bruise peaking from under the collar of her shirt.

Bucky knows about bruises.

The bruise on the dip of her clavicle is dark and deep and _deliberate_.

Her eyes flicker, electrified between his and Steve’s. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out so she snaps it shut.

“Harry _._ ” Sam repeats only this time it’s gentle and his body is more open, trying to not appear confronting.

She knows that they’ve caught sight of her bruise. She curls into herself, moves her hair across her shoulders, moves her shirt so it covers more skin. It’s a well-honed skilled he realizes, covering the evidence. Bucky wonders how far the bruises go and clenches his fists tightly.

“I fell.” She laughs and it is a good laugh. Convincing enough for any other person to believe it to be real. But they know better. They saw her in those few seconds, saw her raw emotions, saw what she couldn’t hide. “Really, I’m exceedingly clumsily once you get to know me. I end up in the infirmary at school more times in a year than you can count. It was just an accident.”

He wants say something, wants to call her out on her lie but Sam cuts in before he or Steve can even open their mouths.

Sam clears his throat and says definite, “Ok.”

He says it in a tone that tells Steve and Bucky to drop the subject.

So they drop the subject.

(Later, it’s all they talk about)

.

.

Harry breathes roughly into the palms of her hands.

Her curtains are drawn shut and the lights are off. Submerged in unending profound, darkness.

She likes it like this.

If only so she can pretend that the outside world doesn’t exist. So she can pretend that Cedric isn’t dead, that Voldemort isn’t back and that she isn’t stuck at the Dursleys. And more importantly that she didn’t just _fuck_ everything up.

She wants to stay here forever. She wants to die here.

But she can’t.

She doesn’t know how to fix this. She doesn’t know how to solve the problem; this isn’t like anything she’s faced. This isn’t like the problems at Hogwarts where everyone focuses on Voldemort or Sirius Black or the TriWizard Tournament and not on her.

She breathes shakily and tears slip wet through the spaces of her fingers.

Are they going to do something? Are they going to say something now that they know? She isn’t stupid, she saw the realization dawn on their faces and – _fuck._

She should have – she should have – she doesn’t know what she should have done but anything other than ‘I fell’ like, _Merlin’s beard on fire,_ she is so fucked. No one knows that it’s this bad. She’s worked hard to keep anyone from knowing that it’s this bad.

Hermione and Ron have only an inkling of an idea of what happens at the Dursleys. She’s reassured them though that it’s just neglect, just a bit of withholding food, and chores around the house, some bars on her windows and locks on her door. They don’t know about the physical abuse, the cupboard under the stairs, the sneers and biting words about her, about her parents.

Harry digs her nails into her scalp and pulls at her hair. She wonders if her soulmates will do anything now that they know.

Of course not, she scoffs. There’s a damn contract with their signatures, with _her_ signature to prove it.

Why would they care about her at all? She’s just a silly little girl with names on her wrists. They know nothing about her; they don’t want to know anything about her. They just want her to keep quiet.

With blurred eyes and trembling hands she scratches out a note on the closest parchment she finds (the back of a forgotten part of History homework)

_Sirius,_

_Please come get me._

_I don’t want to be here any longer._

_I want to leave. I need to leave._

_Please._

_\- Harry_

She sends her letter off with Hedwig in a flutter of snow white feathers. She sends her letter off with desperation and hope clinging to the paper, begging them see. She sends her letter off and aches to be anywhere but here.

.

.

_._

_August 7 th _

 

Under the hydrangea bushes Harry sighs despondently.

The letter she received from Sirius was less than inspiring. To make matters worse he had deliberately fashioned the envelope out of the front page of the most recent Daily Prophet. It seems that in the weeks she’s ‘mysteriously’ been unable to receive the Prophet their titles have gotten a lot more interesting.

**Harriet Potter: The Girl Who Lives.**

A heartbeat and it changes.

**Harriet Potter: The Girl Who _Lies?_**

Harry grits her teeth and twists her neck and tries to push her thoughts to the back of her mind. The longer she lingers on the Prophet and their absolutely absurd accusations – she knows what she saw, she isn’t lying – the quicker she gets angry. And getting angry should be the last thing she should be doing right now. She should be trying her best to get any information on anything Voldemort has been up to.

Hence her usual cooling spot as it is also coincidently the best place to stealthily listen to the news on the telly when uncle Vernon doesn’t want to see her. Really, she ought to be congratulated on hiding here. At least here nobody is glaring at her, grinding teeth so loudly she can’t hear the news, or shoot nasty questions and scathing comments.

“Thank God the girl’s gone,” She hears uncle Vernon say through the window. “What did she think she was doing anyhow? Trying to watch the news with us?” He snorts rather loudly and unattractively. “I’d like to know what she’s really up to. It’s not as if there’d be anything about her lot on our news –”

“Vernon, shh!” Aunt Petunia says perturb. Harry can just imagine her shooting worried looks out the window. “The window’s open!”

“Oh – yes – sorry, dear.”

The Dursleys fall silent. A jingle about Fruit ‘n Bran breakfast cereal plays and one of Mrs. Figgs cats ambles slowly past. Harry isn’t so fond of cats, especially having spent hours sneezing with Mrs. Figgs’ countless cats weaving through her limbs. The only cat Harry really tolerates is Crookshanks, and that’s really only because he helped Sirius try to capture Wormtail.

“Dudders out for tea?”

“At the Polkisses. He’s got so many little friends, he’s so popular…”

Harry barely represses her snort with difficulty. The Dursleys are astonishingly stupid about their son. Easily swallowing lies about tea with a different friend every day of the week; he and his gang spend most of their time vandalizing the park, smoking on the street corners, throwing rocks at passing cars and beating up little children.

Harry closes her eyes and listens to the news.

There is nothing.

No disappearances, no attacks, no mysterious deaths. Apparently the only noteworthy news to talk about is water-skiing budgerigars. A frown pulls at her face. There is clearly nothing more worth listening to, not that it isn’t a good thing but it’s just that he’s Voldemort, where’s all the death and mayhem? It’s what he’s best known for. Rolling her eyes at the news story playing becoming even more ridiculous with every passing second she cautiously turns onto her front and raises herself onto her knees and elbows preparing to crawl out from under the window.

Just as she’s about to crawl several things happen in succession.

A loud, echoing crack breaks the sleepy silence like a gunshot; a cat streaks out from under a parked van where a man had been setting up security cameras all morning; a shriek, and a bellowed oath and the sound of breaking china from the Dursleys living room. Harry jumps to her feet, wand sliding down the length of Dudley’s long-sleeved button up into her hand. But before she can draw herself up to full height, the top of her head collides with the Dursleys’ open window.

The crash and wobbling of glass in window frame makes Petunia scream louder.

Nothing but a choked gasps makes it passed her lips and through watery eyes, head feeling as if it’s been split into two with an axe, Harry tries to focus on the street to spot the source of the noise. But she barely manages to straighten upright when two large hands reach through the open window and close tightly around her throat.

“Put – it – away!” Uncle Vernon snarls in her ear, hands tightening with each word. “Now! Before – anyone – sees!”

Harry gasps struggling for air, “Get – off – me!”

For a few seconds too long they struggle, Harry pulling at her uncle’s sausage-like fingers with her right hand while maintaining a firm grip in her wand; then Harry’s head seems to throb particularly painfully and Vernon lets go with a yelp. He shakes his hands as if he’d been shocked.

Harry coughs roughly bending over at the waist sucking in as much air as she can. She looks up but there’s no sign of what had cause the loud cracking noise, though there are several faces peering through various windows nearby.

Harry quickly slides the wand back up her sleeve and tries to look innocent.

“Lovely day!” Uncle Vernon shouts to Mrs. Number Seven opposite who glares from behind her curtains. The man placing the security cameras on her house stares at them open-mouthed. “Did you hear that car backfire just now? Gave Petunia and me quite a turn!”

He grins, ugly until curious faces finally disappear back behind curtains. Harry steps just out of her uncles reach so that outstretched hands cannot resume their strangling.

“What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you mean?” Harry responds coldly still looking to the left and right sides of the street. Hoping to get even a glimpse of the person who had made the cracking noise.

“Making that racket right outside our –”

“I didn’t make that noise.” Harry cuts in firmly.

Aunt Petunia appears beside Vernon looking just as livid, “Why were you lurking under our window?”

“Yes – yes, good point, Petunia! What were you doing under our window, girl?”

Harry sighs resigned, “Listening to the news.”

“Listening to the news! Again?”

Harry’s lips twist condescendingly, “Well, it changes every day, you see.”

“Don’t you be smart with me girl! What are you really up to? Hmm? You know your lot doesn’t get on out TV.”

“As far as you know.” Harry responds narrowing eyes at her aunt and uncle.

They gawk for a moment before aunt Petunia hisses, “You’re a nasty little liar! You have all those – owls – bringing you news don’t they?”

“Aha!” Uncle Vernon says in a triumphant whisper. “Get out of that one, girl! We’re not stupid, you know.”

“Well, that’s news to me.” Says Harry ever burning temper slow moving like lava under her skin rises tempted by the situation. Longing to be let out. But before she does anything rash and before the Dursleys can call her back she stumbles out of the bushes, crosses the front lawn and strides off up the street.

She’s in trouble now and she knows it. She would have to face her aunt and uncle later and pay the price for her rudeness, but she didn’t care; she has much more pressing issues on mind.

Like that sound which very much resembled someone Apparating or Disapparating.

.

.

If Harry closes her eyes and squeezes them tightly until stars blossom behind the darkness, until the noise of the outside world turns into fuzzy static, she thinks she can feel the ghost of fingers brushing gently across her cheek. She thinks she can feel the invisible weight of a hand resting upon her shoulder in comfort, in encouragement.

_Let go._

When she opens her eyes an unnatural green flashes across them.

To want what you can never have is a kind of pain she’s lived with her whole life. She can’t help but chase after it.

_There is no spell that can bring your parent back, Harry._

She blinks.

_– We can bring them back, Harry. We can bring them back together –_

She twists her neck. The voice in her head quieting, the cacophony of hissing pushed back into the recesses of her mind. The swing squeaks noisily, breaking the static, breaking the hissing, relieving her of her mind and bringing her back to the present.

A barely nonexistent breeze brushes softly by and Harry wants to close her eyes and relish in the cool air. But she is afraid to close her eyes.

Boyish laughter cuts through and the breeze dissipates. No longer children, on the edge of becoming young men yet still with the touch of cruel youth behind it. Dudley and his friends, the boys who tortured her throughout her childhood.

The boys she traded for a man with the imperious curse dancing on his fingertips, the torture curse lighting his eyes, and the killing curse dripping from his lips like sweet honey with malicious hisses.

“Oi, Potter!”

Teasing jests are called out. Shrieking of weak and pathetic little Harry Potter. Always and forever a _freak._ It echoes strangely around her and Harry feels the burning rage like Fiendfyre licking up her insides, rising like bile.

I know it’s frustrating… don’t do anything rash… keep your nose clean; we’ll come for you soon. Sirius’ consolations in the letter she received that morning swirl through her mind. She should listen to him, she should keep her nose clean but his last sentence stings in her mind… don’t leave Little Whinging again.

Again? What does he mean again? How do they even know she left in the first place, her body itches, a mind of its own, and her mouth opens.

“Hey, Big D. Beat-up another ten year old?” Spits from her mouth, eyes hard and glaring at her cousin standing before her.

He is taller than she is. Even when she stands and she can tell he enjoys the meager fact that he is above her, at least in height.

“This one deserved it.” His gaze is cool, a weak imitation of an adult, of a man that Dudley will never be. A façade for his friends because he knows that Harry will forever see Dudley with thick fingers grabbing food like he’s starved, whining cries because he received forty-seven presents one short from the year before. Ickle Diddykins always the baby to aunt Petunia.

They all believe him though, the show he puts on, their laughter backing him up.

“And pray tell what did this one do? Get the last chocolate ice pop?” She sneers and can feel her wand warm against the skin of her forearm. Dudley’s hands curl into fists. “Five against one, _very brave._ ”

“Well you’re one to talk. Moaning in your sleep every night.” Dudley’s eyes glint something mean. Harry tenses and the squeaking of the swing stops with her movement. “At least I’m not afraid of my pillow.”

They boys laugh; Dudley’s by far the loudest. He looks to them and they laugh and grin back, friendship based on nothing but their like for bullying others.

“Don’t kill _Ced-ric_.” Dudley announces loudly, splitting Cedric’s name. The syllables laced with a dark hilarity. “Who’s Cedric? Your boyfriend? Your soulmate?”

“Shut-up.” She mutters through clenched teeth. Harry feels like she’s going break her jaw trying to not spit and hiss at Dudley.

She knows that the Dursley’s know she has a soulmate, how can they not? She is fifteen; she has received them just as every other fifteen year old has. She knows that Dudley knows that it’s somewhere on her arms. But they do not know the name, and they do not know that she has two. They will never know.

“He’s going to kill me mum!” Dudley shouts in falsetto. His laugher dies and he’s stares at her, eyes blank, cruel words breathed from his mouth. “Where is your mum? Where is your mum, Potter? Is she dead?”

The boys ooh and laugh in the background.

“ _Is she dead?_ ”

Harry surges forward a loathsome wrath licking her skin and she digs her shoulder into Dudley’s stomach and forces him into the ground. Her fist swings back and she snaps it forward with strength she is unaware of into his face.

She can feel the bones shift and crack against the force of her knuckles. Hears the satisfying crunch, feels the slippery wet red of blood gush onto her clenched fist. She grins wide and laughs high. Piers Polkiss grabs her around her middle and hauls her off Dudley who’s clutching his nose like a child who clutches their blanket during a thunder storm.

She digs her nails into Polkiss’ arm and he drops her with a shout. She stands faster than they can comprehend and she’s back in Dudley’s face only this time she isn’t swinging fists she’s pressing the tip of her wand into his neck. A far more formidable weapon than her fists and Dudley knows it.

She hisses triumphantly as he pales.

The boys laugh, “C’mon, Dudley get her back! Beat her up!” One of them yells but Dudley makes no such moves to do so. She is more powerful than he could ever wish to be.

“Try it,” She whispers quietly to him, grin tugging at her lips, hand blood red gripping tightly at her wand. “I dare you.”

The wind whips past them. Her hair lifts and falls with every gust and Harry blinks when water drips into her eyes.

She pauses. They all pause. Falling as quiet as mouse, the wind, the rustling of tall uncut sun bleached grass, the squeaking of the ancient playground are the only sounds.

The grin falls from her lips as it starts getting dark. It starts to get dark much too fast as if someone has pulled night across Little Whinging, covering them in darkness.

She looks up and the clouds, dark and terrible, block out the sun. Block out everything happy around them.

“What are you doing?” Dudley accuses softly glancing to his friends, glancing down at the wand pressed into his neck, glancing at her.

“I’m not doing anything.” She says lowering her wand stumbling back as the wind harshly forces her off balance.

“Let’s get out of here, Dudley!” His friends shout. “We’re leaving, Dudley!”

The boys run in the direction of their houses, to familiarity, to home, to warmth but Harry and Dudley stare entranced up at the darkening sky. There is something – there is something coming.

Harry starts running. The cold spike of fear pushing her forward, Dudley following behind her. If they weren’t currently being chased Harry would be amazed that Dudley is able to keep up with her, she’s never seen him move this fast before.

The once warm air is turned ice and it makes it hard to breathe. The small drops of rain soon turn into a heavier fall and Harry is soaked with ice cold water to the bone. The mud squishes and splatters as they run making her and Dudley slip once or twice before they regain their footing.

They run for shelter under a tunnel. It is dimly lit and dank, the smell of mold shifting thickly around them and they cough trying to regain their breath. The rain pools at the end of the tunnel and Dudley comes to a stop beside her.

She wants to grab Dudley’s arm and run to the end of the tunnel and keep running until they’re back at Number 4 Privet Drive. But she cannot move her feet. There is a heavy invisible weight that prevents her moving.

The lights flicker ominously, the electric buzzing sound wavering with the rise and fall of the thunder storm. She breathes heavily and her gaze is drawn to her breath visible in the cold air, curling darkly around her flushed cheeks. Caressing. Ice covers the lights, splitting the glass and the pool of water at the end of the tunnel freezes over.

She turns to Dudley. Then there is something grabbing her by her neck, long skinny fingers, she can feel the indent of each knuckle wrapped tightly around her neck. She opens her eyes – she doesn’t even remember closing them – as she is forced high up off the ground into the wall.

Dementor.

The ice penetrates her chest, into her heart and is then pumped through her arteries and her veins and down to the very marrow of her bones. She fumbles for her wand but she cannot breathe and she shouts choked at some point telling Dudley to run.

The Dementor looks just as it did when she was in her third year. A wraith like figure, cloaked in darkness sucking up everything around her. Disgusting blackened skeleton hands which are now around her throat. It does not have any eyes and Harry doesn’t know where to look but into its mouth. Circular, fathomless deep darkness wanting to take everything from her, her happiness, her life, her soul.

She cannot speak. She cannot feel anything but the pulling of everything happy from her and her quick descent into a depressive darkness.

Perhaps this is alright. Death doesn’t seem so bad now; she thinks her mind going fuzzy. Besides, who would miss her? The little orphan freak Potter with no friends and no soulmates… wait – that isn’t right.

She does have soulmates.

Her wrists are burning; she notes, her mind slowly clearing. Her wrists are _burning._

Harry stabs the Dementor in the face with her wand – she aims for where she thinks an eye should be – it sparks brightly against contact and the Dementor drops her shrieking, floating back. Skeleton hands covering its face protectively.  

Her wand rolls somewhere behind her and she turns to face the Dementor. She crawls backwards on hands and heels as it turns to her and grasps hold of her wand. Clutching her wand she raises it in front of her.

“E – Expect – Expecto.” She rasps but there are no happy memories in her mind. There is nothing. There is nothing but fear and darkness.

She swallows thickly as it approaches her, dark and terrible. Black bandaged cloak scraping the ground like sandpaper. Then she feels her mother’s touch against her face, the weight of her father’s hand on her shoulder. The brush of Bucky’s hand against hers, the look on Steve’s face when they shook hands.

“Expecto Patronum!”

At once an enormous Stag bursts from the tip of her wand, light and sparkling like a thousand crystals racing towards the Dementor and stabbing it with its antlers right where the heart should be. The Dementor sweeps away, defeated and bat-like. She pulls her wand back sweeping it behind her to where her cousin is, the other Dementor hovering over him hand against his cheek in a caress sucking all the happy memories out of Dudley Dursley.  

The Stag rushes galloping by her and like the other chases it off. The Dementor flees weightless, being absorbed by the darkness it came from. Harry breathes heavily and the Stag trots back to her languidly pressing its nose against her cheek.

Harry closes her eyes upon contact, warmth gradually replacing the cold in her bones. It huffs, a strange sensation, Harry wants to say she can feel it, feel the warmth, feel the individual hairs of the Stag as she runs her hand down its neck. But her hair stays firmly in place unmoved by the apparent exhale of her Stag and her hand tingles with familiarity but the hairs on the Stag’s neck remain unaffected .

She lowers her hand. It dissolves into a silvery mist.

Blinking Harry makes her way to Dudley, careful not to walk on the iced puddle, “Dudley. Dudley! Snap out of it you moron.” She shakes him but he is unresponsive.

Dudley lay curled up on the ground, whimpering and shaking. Harry means to slap him out of his stupor but she hears footsteps approaching. Instinctively she raises her wand again turning to the approaching figure.

It is Mrs. Figg.

Their batty old neighbor that calls her in for tea and makes her fix mundane things around her house. The old woman who when the Dursley’s cannot stand the mere sight of her anymore or do not want to bring her anywhere leaves her with her and her numerous cats. Harry quickly hides her wand behind her back.

“Don’t put away your wand, Harry.” She gazes wide-eyed warily around the tunnel. “They might come back.”

.

.

Harry cannot stop looking at Mrs. Figg. This is not a good idea as she lugs Dudley’s heavy weight, one of his impossibly thick arms slung over the top half of her torso and rest of him leaning against her back.

“I still cannot believe it. Dementors in Little Whinging! The whole world’s gone topsy-turvey.” Mrs. Figg mutters eyes shifting all over. “And let me tell you when I find that Mundungus Fletcher I will kill him for leaving you all alone.”

Harry makes a strange noise of acknowledgment. She can’t believe it either; more importantly she can’t believe that Mrs. Figg knows what Dementors are.

“So are – I mean, you know what Dementors are – you’re a…?”

She can’t seem to say the word witch. She can’t even fathom an association between Mrs. Figg and the wizarding world. Mrs. Figg whom she’s known all her life, a witch?

“A witch?” Mrs. Figg echoes her thoughts and glances curiously at her, just as she trips grunting hard when Dudley’s weight seems to triple. “Oh no, my dear. I’m a Squib, although I do know what it feels like when a Dementor is around.”

“Oh.” Harry shifts her weight pulling Dudley higher as he starts to slip. “Wait! That sound this morning. That Fletcher fellow, he Disapparated in front of the house didn’t he!”

“Yes.” Mrs. Figg frowns thoughtfully. “Oh dear, what is Dumbledore going to say? I certainly hope he murders him, I’d be glad to watch. Leaving you here all alone and now Dementors. Dementors!”

Harry stares.

“You know Dumbledore?”

She hums in confirmation, “After that poor Diggory boy got killed last year he asked me and others to keep an eye on you. Did you honestly expect him to allow you to go wandering around all on your own after You-Know-Who came back?”

Harry’s eyebrows furrow. People have been following her around all summer?

Mrs. Figg snorts, “Merlin’s Beard! They told me you were intelligent.”

Dudley moans and slumps further on top of her. Harry grits her teeth and digs and impatient elbow into his ribs.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a Squib, Mrs. Figg?” Harry pants and quickly searches to see where they are, thank Merlin not very far, she thinks.

“Dumbledore’s orders.” Mrs. Figg clicks her tongue at the slick cars parked on the side of the street, Harry is much too concerned with her words to notice any sort of cars parked. “Anyway, you best get inside, don’t leave for anything, Harry. I suspect someone will be in touch soon and whatever you do, don’t do anymore magic.”

Mrs. Figg turns and walks away without another word and ignores her when Harry calls her name. Dudley groans and his head slumps forward, his body following nearly tipping her off balance, “Come on, Dudley. Now you’re just overreacting.”

Harry readjusts Dudley and painfully makes her way up the garden path to the door. There are raised voices when she opens the door, unfamiliar and strange but all she can really focus on is how if she isn’t able to set Dudley down somewhere soon his weight is going to break her spine in half.

She bumps clumsily into the wall when Dudley missteps, “You seriously need to lose weight, Dudley.” She hisses and hitches his arm higher.

Fumbling with the door in the hallway that leads directly to the living room, Harry swings it open and manages not to topple over. However, the sight that greets her nearly does.

She is greeted with complete and utter silence; even aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon are uncharacteristically quiet. And there, standing in aunt Petunia’s immaculate, paisley covered sofa, and pink striped wallpapered living room are majority of the Avengers.

Harry blinks in surprise. Then everything happens at once.

Dudley slides off her and crashes to the ground. Aunt Petunia shrieks reminiscent of the Dementor she poked in the face with her wand. Uncle Vernon shouts hastily running (more of an odd quickened waddling) towards Dudley to help him into the nearest chair. And as uncle Vernon reaches Dudley he shoves Harry backwards, Steve who has at the same time made his way to her catches her.

“What are you doing here?” She asks haltingly eyes moving to each Avenger, then warily to her aunt and uncle.

“We wanted to talk to your guardians,” Steve says strained like he’s holding something back. “Tony set up some cameras around the place and… well with what happened this morning…”

He fades out awkwardly.

A towel is thrust at her and Harry grabs hold of it looking up to see Natasha Romanoff smiling gently at her. It’s an odd sight considering she had interrogated her just days before. They are crowded around her, Harry frowns and looks back to see aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon fuss worryingly over Dudley.

“What happened this morning?” She questions confused collecting ice cold droplets from her skin. This cannot be a towel that the Dursley’s own, it’s much too soft. “Wait, what do you mean Mr. Stark set up cameras?”

They stare at her.

“This morning with the…” Tony begins and weakens making vague gestures with his hands like someone is choking him.  

Harry frowns, “Oh, that.” She stares hard at Mr. Stark and narrows her eyes. “Why did you set up cameras around the house? Have you seen anything… strange?”

Tony snorts and stares at her incredulously, “I’d say so.”

Harry’s heart flutters worryingly. Did they see someone under Dumbledore’s orders follow her? Did they see Mundungus Fletcher Disapparate?

“Harry.” She turns as Bucky speaks her name, steel eyes turned molten with anger. “ _He hurt you._ ”

She doesn’t know what to say. She opens her mouth, probably to spew her normal lies of: no, it was just an accident, I tripped and fell, I’m really quite clumsy. But her brain is still muddled from the Dementors and she just found out Mrs. Figg is a Squib and people have been _following her_ and she just can’t get over the fact that they might’ve captured something or someone magical on camera.

Not to mention that they’ve actually caught what happened on camera so all of her usual lies are rendered useless.

She shuts her mouth and blinks wide-eyed. Steve swears and Bucky turns to the Dursley’s. Sam, Tony and Maria crowd around Steve talking to him – talking him down she realizes. Natasha and Clint have stepped in front of Bucky and they actually have weapons trained on him.

Her jaw drops.

“What are you _doing_?” She asks them staggered, voice pitched high in panic.

Aunt Petunia asks at the same time, “Who did this to you, Diddykins?”

Dudley raises a shaky finger in her direction.

 _Witch,_ is silently persecuted in the space between her and the Dursley’s.

“I didn’t do anything to him!” She bursts in anger. The Avengers fall silent and turn to her surprised. “Well, except break his nose and he definitely deserved it.”

“You’ve finally done it,” Uncle Vernon ignores what she’s said and turns to her accusingly. “You’ve finally driven our boy mad with your freakishness.”

“Vernon.” Petunia breathes scandalized grasping Dudley broad shoulders, which are hunched over a bucket that he moans into .

“Well just look at him, Petunia. Our boy’s gone barmy.” Vernon turns back to her eyes narrowed. “This was your whole plan all along, wasn’t it!”

Harry scoffs and rolls her eyes. A move she would’ve never dared to do when she was younger, “Please, Dudley’s going to perfectly fine. He’s bloody over-exaggerating the damn self-centered whale that he is.”

Petunia screeches appalled, Vernon lets out a war-cry like sound and raises a meaty fist, “You insolent little girl! After everything we’ve done for you, taken you in out of the goodness of our hearts, provided you with food and clothes, even gave you Dudley’s second bedroom! We should’ve left you at an orphanage!”

Harry is tempted to laugh high and loud, goodness of their hearts, there is no good in their hearts, “Maybe you should have! No doubt I would have had a better childhood there than growing up in this hell!”

Vernon sneers, “Then you can get out. Get out! And take your freakishness elsewhere. You’ll end up just like your parents anyhow, useless and alone and -”

Harry lurches forward a growling scream dug up deep from her throat, “You know nothing about my parents!” Someone catches her before she claw at Vernon. “Shut up. Shut the fuck up about my parents, you know nothing about them!”

“Get out!” Vernon rages and people step in front of them until she can no longer see him. “Get out of my house! I want you out!”

She wrestles out of the arms and shouts sharply, “ _Gladly!_ ”

All the light bulbs in the hideously patterned lamps that Harry hates explode and her aunt and uncle let out short terrified screams, even Dudley manages a moan of terror. Harry turns and runs up the stairs to Dudley’s second bedroom. She opens Hedwig’s cage and guides her to the window where she takes off in a hurry. Taking hold of the cage she stuffs it uncaringly into her charmed bag. She tosses everything in, loose shirts and socks from the floor, various books piled on the miniscule desk, a couple of galleons here and there.

All of her Hogwarts things and anything with meaning is already in there, never leaves her bag actually. The anti-thief charm on it has worked wonders with Dudley’s grubby greedy paws.

The only thing she takes care to pack is the picture of her parents.

She zips up her bag and turns to the door. Steve stands in the threshold staring at the small room with tense shoulders, furrowed brows and pinched lips. He’s staring at the seven deadbolt locks on the outside of the door, at the cat flap big enough for a plate to fit through, at her one bag and impersonalized walls.  

And he looks… he looks genuinely upset.

It is, possibly, the first time she’s ever seen someone care so much that they are profoundly upset. She doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

“Where are you going to go?”

She breathes shakily and roughly wipes traitor tears that have slipped out. Steels her voice and replies, “I don’t know.”


	3. trēs

.

_August 7 th_

 

Harry sits on the edge of a bed, pristine white cotton sheets creased beneath her.

She sits with wand in hand and eyes resolutely trained on the dark corners of the room. Unlikely as it is that a dementor would be lurking there, the oddity of the night imposes on her nerves and keeps her in a constant state of fight or flight.  

She thinks she’s made a mistake coming here – no, she _knows_ she’s made a mistake. But in the moment, between the Dementors and the Dursleys and everything in between, any ideas of where she could go was given little thought. She presses her lips together and moves her gaze to the light beneath the door.

On the other side of the unfamiliar door, beyond the kitchen and the living room are two other bedrooms. Grateful as she is to Stark for giving her a place to sleep, just the mere knowledge that those two bedrooms belong to her soulmates makes her skin itch.

She blinks.

Eyes wide and bright green even in the dark shift towards the ceiling; eyes it suspiciously. She has been reassured by Stark that his AI does not have cameras in any of the bedrooms or bathrooms in his tower. Still, she asks the AI to not record or respond to anything that goes on wherever she may be.

She grits her teeth and twists her neck. If they had caught something magical on camera then that would mean Harry had directly violated the International Statute of Secrecy. She’s sure that the Ministry would just Obliviate the Avengers memories and get rid of the recordings like they did to uncle Vernon’s sister but, something in her feels as if she would receive a terrible reception if the Prophet headlines were anything to go by.

She needed to get rid of any recordings immediately. Though, she doubts it’ll be easy to achieve.

She breathes deeply. Blinks back tears and presses hand over bruised thigh. Stares at the envelope beside her. The light beneath the door shifts with shadow.

Harry snatches the envelope up, strides to the closet, which is about the same size as Dudley’s second bedroom, shuts the door tightly behind her and turns the light on. She steels her breath and tries to peel open the Ministry seal without breaking it; it breaks anyway.

 

_Dear Ms. Potter,_

_The Ministry has received intelligence that at 6:23 this evening you performed a Patronus Charm in the presence of a muggle. As a clear violation for the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, you are hereby expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_As you have already received official warning for a previous offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Wizards’ Statute of Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on August 12 th. _

_Hoping you are well,_

_Mafalda Hopkirk_

_Improper use of magic office_

_Ministry of Magic_

 

Harry reads the letter twice.

She lowers the letter numb and icy, hands shaking. There is only one thought that echoes through her mind like an agonizing scream in the silence of mountains. She is expelled from Hogwarts. It’s over, simple as that. She’s never going back.

A choked gasp and the feel as if someone has encaged her body, tightening, restricting any movement makes her grip the soft carpeted floor. Harry doesn’t even realize she’s fallen down until the soft carpet is registered in her hands. There’s a loud crack outside the closet that has Harry stumbling upright picking up fallen wand and tripping into the bedroom. There is no one visible in sight; she then sees a brown barn owl fluttering dazed outside the window having just collided into it. She runs towards the window and clumsily unlatches it sliding it open allowing the owl to fly in.

The owl shakes its feathers, sticks out its leg, to which small roll of parchment is attached. The owl takes off as soon as Harry pulls off the letter. She almost half expects this second letter to say that she will be stripped of her wand and sent to Azkaban. Hands shaking, she unravels the letter, where written hastily in blotchy black ink is:

_Harry,_

_Dumbledore’s just arrived at the Ministry; he’s trying to sort everything out. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR AUNT AND UNCLE’S HOUSE. DO NOT DO ANYMORE MAGIC._

_Arthur Weasley._

Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s trying to sort everything out? She hasn’t heard a single slip of news about Voldemort from anyone, even Dumbledore then suddenly she’s attacked and he’s… trying to sort it all out. How much power did Dumbledore have at the Ministry? Who would even believe him now, after he’s backed up her claims that Voldemort is back, she’s seen the headlines.

**Dumbledore: Is he daft or is he dangerous?**

Does he even have enough power to keep her from being expelled?

Another owl flies in. This one is as black as night, elegant and graceful; it does a lap around the room before releasing the parchment in its talons at just the right moment for it to smack her in the face. Hedwig hoots disdainfully at the other owl from her perch in her cage. Harry glances at the parchment immediately recognizing Sirius’ handwriting.

_Arthur’s just told us what’s happened._

_Don’t leave the house again. Whatever you do._

Harry exhales and pinches her mouth shut. She never thought there would be a day where she’s disappointed to receive a letter from her godfather. That’s it? Don’t leave the Dursleys? It’s too late for that. She’s already left and they don’t even know it. Wasn’t anybody going to say ‘well done’ for single handedly fighting off two Dementors and saving her cousin? Wasn’t anybody going to say ‘we’re glad you’re safe, we’ll be there soon.’ Mr. Weasley and Sirius act as if she’s badly misbehaved and are saving the telling-off’s until they could ascertain how much damage she’s produced.

They are such inadequate responses for everything that’s happened that night. Harry grabs both letters and flips them back and forth, searches every inch of the parchment as if words will appear by the will of her gaze alone. But no matter how hard she looks there are no more words.

She crumples the letters in hand and throws them to the ground. Gathering her own parchment and quill she begins to her own letter. If no one will send her anything on what’s happened. Nothing on what’s happened with the Dementors, Mrs. Figg, the people following her, or how Dumbledore intended to sort everything out then she would have to come up with her own plan.

She’ll be damned before she lets herself sit and wait around for instructions.

This is her future.

This is her home they are trying to expel her from.

 

The only home she’s ever known.

.

.

.

_August 8 th _

 

Harry sits at the breakfast table surrounded by the Avengers.

Before her is an assortment of breakfast foods. Everything she can imagine and more, much like meals served at the Great Hall in Hogwarts; she expects nothing less of Stark. But it makes her uncomfortable, makes her push the meager fruit on her plate around with a fork and stare unseeingly at the juices oozing together.

“You okay, kid?”

Harry looks up and into the eyes of Clint seated across from her. She blinks and smiles and feels exhausted, she barely got any sleep the other night, but answers, “I’m fine.”

“Listen, Harry,” Stark speaks up and gains everyone’s attention. “With what’s happened at your... Uh,” He clears his throat as if something particularly nasty has lodged itself there. “Guardian’s house, we have evidence now. Visual proof that if you ever –”

Harry understands where he’s going. Had been warned that this might happen. She steels herself and understands that this is something she has to do, no matter how much she detests to.

“No.” She cuts him off, soft but firm.

They turn to her surprised.

“No? What do you mean no?”

Harry tightens her grip around her fork and inhales heavily, repeats the words she practiced all night, “With all due respect, I know and understand that you’re concerned but this is my business and my business alone.”

“I don’t understand.” Dr. Banner inputs staring at her in disbelief. “They abused you and you’re just going to let them get away it?”

She grits teeth and shows composure, “As I said –”

“Harry, you can’t do this.” Bucky turns to her imploring. “We have evidence that can put them away for abuse. I’m sure Stark is more than willing to provide the lawyers. Don’t you want that?”

Harry feels like there are razor blades cutting into soft flesh of her trachea as she forces the _yes_ down.

She wants to scream it; wants to scream: yes of course I want that. But she can’t. Because no matter how much she hates it, not matter much she loathes the Dursleys they serve a purpose.

An echo of her mother’s voice presses between her shoulder blades like a hand resting comfortably there.

_Be brave, my sweet girl_

Harry bites her tongue, hard, just as Mr. Adler clears his throat.

“Hamish.” Stark greets surprised, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Do we have a meeting today?”

“No, we do not, Mr. Stark.” Mr. Adler smiles amicably and walks closer to the table. “I am sorry for the early intrusion but it appears we are on a strict time limit. This is for you.”

Mr. Adler places a manila envelope before Stark who immediately picks it up and opens it.

“What is it?” Maria asks eyeing Mr. Adler distrustfully.

Stark clenches his jaw and looks to Harry incredulously, “It’s a lawsuit. From Harry.”

“What?” Steve looks between Tony and Harry. “What’s going on, Harry?”

Harry presses lips together, curls hands into fists on her lap until her nails bite into the skin of her palms, “As I said, this is my business and my business alone. I would like for you to delete all recordings you’ve taken of Number 4 Privet Drive, without my consent or knowledge or I will follow through with the lawsuit, Mr. Stark.”

.

.

Harry walks out; Mr. Adler and a resounding surprised silence following in her footsteps.

They don’t get very far.

She stops just before the elevators at the desperate call of her name. Echoed twice in familiar tones she’s heard too many times over the past few days. Mr. Adler slows to a stop beside her, flickers his gaze to the two men determinedly approaching her and levels her with a look.

“I’ll be at the diner.” He says quietly and turns polite forced smile to Bucky and Steve before he enters the open elevator.

Harry breathes out anxiousness, breathes in faux courage and faces her soulmates.

“Why are you doing this?” It is Steve who asks her this, not Bucky to her surprise.

For a moment she panics, she doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t think they would take a repeat of earlier words too well but they are the only words she’s practiced. They are the only words she could think of to justify her actions.

It is her business.

They know nothing about her. None of them know anything about her.

But they are her soulmates. Both blue eyed and broad shouldered, both expressing an innate concern, for her of all things. Their concern is practically tangible, like she can reach out with nimble fingers and wind her hands through the air and into their hearts.

She thinks that maybe they deserve a semblance of truth.

“They’re my relatives and I hate them. I’m sure no one abhors them as much as I do…” She bites her lip, clenches her hands, opens her mouth and says. “But, they’re the only blood relatives I have left.”

She looks between the both of them and continues.

“I know you don’t understand and I don’t fully understand either,” She pauses and forces the words out. “But this is my decision and I hope you can come to respect it. Just as I have respected your decision of the contract and the terms that I have conceded to.”

Harry presses lips together and breathes in deeply. Turns without looking at their faces, doesn’t think she can bear to see their expressions and walks into the open elevator.

_– But Petunia took you. She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you, to protect you. –_

The doors close and she exhales calm and measured and she doesn’t know if she’s doing the right thing.

.

.

“I feel like I’ve made a mistake.” Harry twists her fingers together nervously. “Have I made a mistake?”

Mr. Adler pauses in cutting his eggs and looks to her sternly, “You are doing the right thing, Ms. Potter.”

Harry breathes deeply, once; twice. Tries to believe what Mr. Adler says but looks of betrayal and deprecation across the Avengers faces flash through her mind. They know now, they know about the abuse. And for the first time, having people know and side with her, having people want the Dursleys gone as much as she and she, going against what every atom of her desires to do, pushes them away, says: no, I don’t need your help. I don’t want it.

Says: place me back into the belly of the beast.

But she does not want to go back. Not now, not ever.

Screams on the inside: I don’t want to face them alone. I don’t want to be there any longer. Help me.

But her mouth stays shut, voice caught on its way out her mouth. Lips stitched together with bloody twine coated in lies.

“Do you know what happens to people who break the Statute of Secrecy?”

Harry moves her gaze from the table top to Mr. Adler. She is too afraid to ask but the answer is clear in her eyes.

“A simple Obliviate to the muggles would normally suffice, a warning or two to the Wizard or Witch, perhaps a fine. But with how you’ve been regarded by the Prophet and in the Ministry lately, well, best case scenario: they take away your wand and you are banished from entering any magical community around the world. Forced thereby to live as a muggle.”

Harry’s heart skips in uneven timorous patterns.

She holds her wand gingerly between her hands beneath the table and tries to fight off the anxiety threatening to spill over like an overflown bathtub. They cannot take away her wand. She’ll refuse; she’ll run away and live alone in some small town if she has to.

She cannot give up her magic, it’s her lifeline.

It’s her strongest connection to her parents.

Her mouth feels dry like someone’s stuffed cotton balls inside that stick to the roof of her mouth. She hates to ask but she must so she croaks out weakly, “… and the worst case scenario?”

Mr. Adler smiles grimly, “Azkaban.”

Harry thinks about the Dementors, she thinks about the videos, she thinks that they won’t send her there, right? She’s a child, she didn’t know any better. Its self-defense what was she supposed to do? Lay down her wand and be kissed by the Dementor?

“But that should be for extreme cases and there are exceptions to the current laws, of course.” Mr. Adler interrupts catching the overflow of emotions on her face. “What had happened in Little Whinging with your cousin should be considered self-defense in which case your offense will be null and void. I’ll give you papers and books to look over and study on so you’re prepared for your trial. But the video tapes…”

He trails off and Harry can practically feel the unsaid words settle uncomfortably in the space around them. _There is no exception for the tapes; you will be prosecuted should they get out._

“It’s best to not get the Ministry involved with the Avengers, don’t you think?”

Harry nods her head heavily and thinks that she will do anything to get rid of the tapes if it means she gets to keep her wand and be a part of the Wizarding World.

It is silent for a few moments as Mr. Adler eats. Harry turns to look out the window and catches sight of Clint. She watches Clint watch her and wonders whose idea it was to send him. Wonders why it’s not Bucky or Steve.

“Have you told anyone where you are?”

“No.” She says and fights the guilt that rises.

“Are you going to?”

Harry snorts, turns her gaze away from Clint and to Mr. Adler, “Doubtful. Mrs. Figg has probably told them that the Dursleys have locked me in my room or kept me in the house. I haven’t received any other letters, not even one asking how I am.”

She doesn’t say it out loud but she certainly feels it. They don’t deserve to know where she is.

Mr. Adler searches her face as if he’s looking for something and whatever he finds makes him consider his next words carefully, “You should, at the very least, ask them when they will retrieve you. I imagine that if they go to Number Four Privet Drive and do not find you there, you will be in more trouble than you desire.”

Harry’s lips twist down and for a second scathingly thinks, good. Let them run around with their heads cut off like chickens searching for her. After the summer she’s had they deserve it.

“Compromise.” Mr. Adler opens his arms, palms faced up and looks meaningfully at her. “Meet them somewhere in the middle. Do it discretely and you’ll get to keep all your secrets.”

.

.

Steve feels conflicted.

Feels like the only emotion he’s felt since being dug up from the ice is conflicted.

He sits in one of Starks labs with his gaze locked firmly on the floor. Sam, a constant presence of comfort and friendship, sits beside him discussing with the others the lawsuit.

The goddamn fucking lawsuit.

It feels unreal. It feels like everything is moving in slow-motion around him and sound is muffled to humming buzz in the back of his mind. The only thing he can concentrate on is the floor beneath his feet; he can’t even feel his own body.

His mind just keeps going back to the seven deadbolt locks on the outside of her door, the cat flap big enough for a plate to fit through, her one bag and impersonalized walls.

To everything unseen inside that house and how there were no pictures of Harry and how she looked like a stranger in a house she grew up in. Wonders why she’s doing this, even after she explained.

The light flickers and the projection re-starts. Steve catches glimpses in the polished floor. Harry’s head bangs on the window, a shout, meaty hands grabbing furiously at her neck, strangling, struggling.

Clenches his hands and closes his eyes. Feels Bucky shift uneasily, fumingly quietly in the corner of the room opposite to him. They can’t watch it over and over and over like the others.

“There’s nothing I can do.” Tony’s voice breaks through the strange atmosphere around him. All the noise and feeling comes rushing back as fast as a wave breaks in the ocean.

“There has to be something, Tony.” Bruce exclaims. This is the most Steve’s seen of Bruce lose his temper aside from the Helicarrier and scepter.

“Well there isn’t. I’ve checked, my lawyers have checked. The lawsuit is iron clad the best thing to do is follow through. She knows and Hamish knows that if they pursue this then the media will be all over it. Steve and Barnes’ soulmarks will get out; Harry’s life will be completely changed in ways no one is even thinking of. I mean – this is why I hired Hamish in the first place he’s the best of the best. It’s easier to agree to her requests.” He pauses fiddling with something. “She isn’t even asking for much, just to delete the videos and any copies or back-ups in front of her and she’ll drop the charges.”

“She’s isn’t asking for much?” Sam reiterates scoffing. “Her family, no – sorry, those _people_ have abused her for who knows how long and we have the evidence to put them away and you want to delete them?”

“You think I want to delete them!” Tony bursts in anger and everybody stops. “You think that this isn’t a hard decision for me? This is hard and I wish she wasn’t doing this but she is.”

Steve frowns and catches Bucky’s gaze.

_– this is my decision and I hope you can come to respect it –_

“Do it.” He says.

_– just as I have respected your decision of the contract and the terms that I have conceded to –_

“It’s what she wants.”

Bucky stares at him. Something unreadable in his expression, something Steve’s never seen before, not since he’s known him. His chest feels tight and his stomach is in knots. He doesn’t even pay attention to Sam or Bruce or anyone trying to talk to him, asking him why. Why isn’t he fighting?

He just stares at Bucky’s unreadable expression and stalks out the lab.

Steve finds himself on the balcony in the upper level of the tower gripping the railing tightly in his hands. Stares down into the sea of people below, all bright colored and all wrong.

Everything is wrong.

Moves his gaze to the diner across the street that he never goes into and knows just _knows_ that Harry is in there. He can’t seem to get her words out of his head and the railing underneath his hands groan a little as the pressure of his grip increases.

“Pretty sure Stark won’t like having to replace a railing this high.” Bucky says behind him and Steve can hear all the emotions in his voice. The pent up frustration, the anger, the sadness, it makes his shoulders tense.

“Pretty sure he can afford it.”

They’re silent for a moment and Steve lets go of the railing and turns to Bucky.

Bucky doesn’t beat around the bush. Never has, never will, Steve supposes, so Bucky asks him out right.

“Don’t you care?” Steve can’t read a single miniscule expression on Bucky’s face. “Don’t you care about her?”

He clenches his hands.

“Of course I do.” Steve says, shaking his head as if it can shake away his feelings. “I do care about Harry. I especially care for her safety… but this is what she wants, Bucky. You heard her.”

“Screw what she wants!” Bucky says stepping forward. The anger finally showing on his face. “She’s fifteen; she doesn’t know what she wants. Those people probably fucked enough with her mind to make sure that she never tells anyone.”

“Even still, who are we to make decisions for her?”

“We’re her soulmates. That’s who we are.”

Bucky walks away and Steve feels… he doesn’t know what he feels. He just knows that it hurts.

.

.

Clint enters the elevator with Harry.

She looks at him curiously in the blurry reflection of the doors. He leans comfortably against wall ankles crossed, one hand curled around the wrist of the other. Sees his eyes bore into the side of her head as if his gaze alone will shoot an arrow that will pierce her skull and spill her thoughts; a fountain of blood red thoughts that he can cup his palms under and collect into his hands, peer into her mind.

He breaks the silence first.

“I had an older brother.”

Harry bites the inside of her cheek and glances curiously over her shoulder to meet his gaze. Sharp arrows pierce her skull but no blood red thoughts spill.

“I say had because I don’t know if he’s alive or not but,” He shrugs nonchalant but Harry can tell he feels anything but. “He was still my brother you know?”

No, she doesn’t know, not really. Harry doesn’t really have any family related to her by blood other than the Dursleys and even then her feelings towards them are anything but familial love. Harry lowers her gaze and turns back around. She doesn’t know if she’s supposed to say something.

“When we were little and lived with our parents they used to beat the shit out of us.”

Harry tenses at his confession. His voice is blank, his gaze is blank but his hand tightens around his wrist and his jaw clenches.

Harry stares perplexed at the floor. This cannot possibly what they sent him to her for. Clint alone doesn’t seem like the type to willingly open up to anyone immediately nor does he seem like the type to do so if someone told him too. Harry presses her lips together and refuses to be backed into a corner.

“Are you…” Harry faces him, squares her shoulders and doesn’t let herself be intimidated. She’s faced much more intimidating things. “Are you telling me this so that we… bond? So that I tell you things? Things about the Dursleys?”

Clint smiles at that.

“No,” He scoffs and shakes his head. “That’s not my style. And no one told me to tell you anything. I’m just letting you know, kid, that I know what it’s like. And if you don’t wanna talk about it it’s fine, but if you do… then I just want you to know that there’s someone here who gets it.”

Unsaid words rest heavy on her tongue as she looks at him. Fourteen years waiting to be released. Idly, she thinks that the elevator is moving abnormally slow.

“Did you fight back?” Her words are so quiet she thinks that she didn’t really speak them as much as she mouthed them, his gaze is focused on her lips and at the end of her question he looks back into her eyes.

His smile twists.

“We ran away. To the circus.” He pauses contemplatively. “It was good there, for a while. Then… some things happened, found myself out of home and no brother around. I decided after that to not really rely on anyone. Don’t need anyone if you have yourself, right?”

Harry doesn’t speak.

“There’s no shame in running away, Harry. Sometimes, it saves your life.”

The elevator slows to a stop and the doors open but neither Harry nor Clint moves.

Jarvis speaks smooth and crisp, “Ms. Potter, Sir has asked you to join him in Lab A. He has agreed to your terms and conditions and is ready to delete all videos taken without your knowledge and permission at Number Four Privet Drive.”

Harry breathes out and feels the tightened band around her throat and around her heart disappear.

Relief, she thinks.

Pure, unadulterated, relief.

Now all she has to worry about is her hearing.

.

.

Harry finds herself standing in the closet in the bedroom after Stark deleted the videos.

She finds herself standing there because it’s almost the same size as Dudley’s second bedroom and that fact alone gives a little comfort in an unfamiliar place – as fucked up as it sounds.

She finds herself standing in the closet staring at what used to be empty space. Empty space that is now covered with more clothing than Harry can imagine. Clothing for a girl it looks like, a teenage girl.

Harry hesitates by a maroon long sleeved top, where taped to the sleeve is a rectangular card.

 _Harry –_ it says on the front. She quickly glances at the clothes once more and flips the card over.

_An apology for the videos._

_\- Tony_

“What?” Harry breathes out confused.

“Stark likes to go all out.” Is said suddenly behind her and Harry jumps turning around with her hand on her heart.

“You scared me.”

“Sorry.” Bucky smiles crookedly. “Didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay.” Harry returns the smile and gestures to the clothing. “This can’t all be for me.”

“I think it is.” Bucky glances at the clothes before looking at her.

“Why?” Harry lifts the card and confusedly searches the clothes as if an answer might present itself hidden in the soft lush fibers. “I threatened him with a lawsuit and he didn’t – he didn’t have to apologize. Deleting the videos was enough. Why would he - ?”

“Steve says,” Bucky begins, at length. “Stark gives gifts of a grand gesture because he doesn’t really know how to express what he wants to say… or his emotions.”

Harry snorts, “Who really does?”

Harry bites her lip and gazes at the card. Can’t seem to take her eyes off it. No one’s really given her as anything as grand as this. Of course, she’s received things wonderful things from friends but no one’s ever really given her clothes – new clothes. Which actually look like they’ll fit her come to think of it.

She assumes that because everyone has always known her for wearing big baggy boys clothing (not knowing they were Dudley’s hand-me-downs) that that was the type of clothing she likes. It’s oddly perceptive of Stark and she’s… touched.

“You busy?” Bucky asks stepping out of the closet.

She follows placing the card down delicately on the desk, “No. Did you want something?”

“I was wondering,” His right shoulder lifts up in a half-hearted shrug. “I mean – if you would like to watch a movie out in the living room. I’m trying to catch up on what I’ve missed when I was… well, I could use some company.”

Harry twists her hands together and shifts her weight from foot to foot, “Um, sure. I wouldn’t mind watching a movie right now.”

A slow smile spreads across Bucky’s face. Unconsciously, she thinks, uncontrolled because she’s seen him smile once before only it didn’t look like any of the other smiles she’s seen. She saw the way his lips stretch into a smile but the smile meant nothing. Didn’t reach any part of him.

This – this smile of his, right there. It’s genuine, it means something, it reaches a part of him.

She doesn’t know what it means.

Harry follows him out into the living room a shadow of herself. Half her mind occupied by thoughts of Stark and his gifts and the other half occupied by thoughts of why Bucky was doing this. Why was he putting so much effort into getting to know her?

“Have you seen To Kill A Mockingbird? Sam says it’s good but I think his opinion shouldn’t be taken verbatim. His taste in music is awful no matter what he says so I don’t know about his taste in movies.”

Harry is drawn back to the present with his question, “No. I don’t really watch movies or tv shows.”

Bucky raises a disbelieving eyebrow as he sits down, “In this day and age I kind of find that hard to believe, Harry. Everybody always seems to talk about some kind of tv show or movie.”

“That’s true I suppose.” She falls back onto the couch, ignores the way her body aches and throbs with the movement and focuses her gaze on the tv just as Jarvis brings up the movie. “I’ll rephrase… I wasn’t really allowed to watch television.”

She can feel Bucky’s gaze burning into the side of her face but she resolutely keeps her eyes on the tv.

“There was a tv in the kitchen but I was only really allowed to turn it on in the mornings and even then it had to be on the news channel and the volume either on low or mute.” She looks at him then. There’s an unrecognizable look on his face. “I didn’t mind really, I find books to be more entertaining.”

She shifts her eyes back to the tv, “Besides, now it just means I get to watch them for the first with my soulmates who haven’t seen them either.”

She can’t be sure but she thinks that out of the corner of her eye she sees him smile again. Softer this time.

.

.

.

_August 9 th_

 

Harry feels her insecurity weigh heavy in her chest. Feels as if someone’s tied rocks around her heart and thrown it into the river to watch it sink to the bottom.

It doesn’t sit right with her.

This novel feeling is peculiar; makes her feel like she doesn’t know what to feel anymore. Just a mess of emotions all bleeding into each other surmounting itself into whatever it is she feels now.

She steals a glance at Steve from the corner of her eye. They sit in silence watching some awful show that aunt Petunia adores which Harry tries her best to ignore. She’s fairly certain that Steve is not paying attention to it either. They are both, rather indiscreetly, observing each other.

Harry opens her mouth then shuts it.

Furrows her brows and doesn’t really know how to say it.

“You don’t have to hang out with me.” She says finally and thinks that it is not exactly what she wants to say but its good enough, for now. Steve flicks an unreadable look at her. Harry clarifies, “I just mean, don’t you have something more interesting to do? You can leave anytime. I was just going to -” Harry flicks her gaze around the room searching for an answer, “Read a book.”

Steve raises his eyebrows briefly, “If you want me gone, Harry, just say so. Personally, I don’t really have anything pressing to get to. Besides, if anyone needs me then Jarvis will notify me.”

She studies Steve for a long moment. Then she returns to mostly just trying to use the power of her mind to will her injuries to heal faster.

She doesn’t tell Steve to leave.

.

.

Bucky joins them later.

He pauses in the threshold of the room and flickers his gaze between the two of them before he smiles hesitantly and moves to sit on a chair nearby.

Harry watches Steve sit straighter, watches him watch Bucky with hope and love overflowing clearly in his eyes. Watches as their eyes meet.

Moves her gaze away because the exchange of their looks is something that shouldn’t been seen by outsiders. Because it is untainted love that’s lasted nearly a century.

And she’s nothing but an outsider.

Her heart feels like it’s sinking now. Swallowed into the dark abyss of the sea.

“Ms. Potter,” Jarvis addresses her and she automatically looks up. “Mr. Adler has just dropped off a parcel of reading material for you. Says it’s quite important that you study it.”

Harry grimaces. She has no doubt that it’s the papers or notes and books Mr. Adler promised her of the Wizarding Laws and whatever else he thinks she needs to study and what he thinks is likely to happen at her hearing.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll go and get them now.”

She flashes a smile at her soulmates and can’t help but feel relieved when she leaves.

 

Ignores the feelings and what they might mean.

.

.

After hours of reading Harry makes the mistake of falling asleep in the common living room.

Sitting on the floor, upper body bent over the coffee table, her head pillowed by a thick tome, charmed so that the average muggle wouldn’t pay it any mind.

She dreams –

She dreams of the graveyard.

Of the night Voldemort came back.

Only it doesn’t really feel like a dream, nor does it feel entirely like a memory. It almost feels… real.

Feels like she’s living it all over again.

“I’d almost forgotten.” Voldemort turns to her, eyes as red as the blood that drips down her arm. “Our most esteemed guest: _Harriet Potter._ Here you are standing on the bones of my father. I would introduce you but word has it you’re almost as famous as me these days.”

He smiles. Paper thin lips formed from new skin still stretched into shark-like smile. Full of teeth glinting dangerously in the moonlight.

“This isn’t real.” She says and her voice betrays her fears.

“Isn’t it?” He mocks. “I believe that this is quite real indeed, Harry.”

“No. No.” She shakes her head, tears moving in curved pattern with each denial. “This can’t be real, this isn’t how it happened.”

The stone scythe is moved away from her with a wave of Voldemort’s wand. The sudden lack of confinement has her falling to the ground.

“Shall we duel, Harry?”

Harry breathes heavily and looks around. The graveyard seems darker than all the times she dreamt of it before. There is no Wormtail present, there are no Death Eaters watching. There is only her and Voldemort.

“Pick up your wand, Harry. I’d like to see the extent of your magic. Are you really as special as the rumors say you are or are they just that – rumors?” He laughs low and dark. “Has Dumbledore failed the Wizarding World, hiding behind a mere child believing you to be the… _savior?_ ”

Harry bares her teeth.

“You cannot save this world from me, Harry.”

Lunges for her wand as it appears in front of her. Stands and raises it, but is too slow.

Voldemort is already waving his wand in a terrifyingly familiar movement. She knows the words that will spill from his mouth, closes her eyes and waits –

_"Crucio!"_

Harry wakes with a scream, gasping and choking on her own breath.

Someone has her arms in a vice grip and is holding her down. She can’t see past the blur of tears clouding her eyes and instinctively fights back. She thinks someone is trying to talk to her, to call her name but sound is muffled like someone’s placed earmuffs over her ears when she was asleep and no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t breathe.

She hits, whoever it is, with her knee to their stomach and they finally let her go.

She crawls backwards breaths coming out is short panicked hiccups and she digs the heels of her palms into her eyes until she sees stars. Tries to control her breathing and looks up and into the slightly blurred faces of Clint and Natasha.

Clint is on his knees, arms out, palms faced upwards, look on his face like he’s approaching a wild and terrified animal.

“Hey.” He says softly.

Natasha is standing, feet shoulder width apart, arms by her sides, face turned concentrated to the table – turned to her book.

“You okay, kid?”

“I’m fine.” She says and feels anything but. Her voice is hoarse like she’s spent hours screaming under the Cruciatus Curse.

She stumbles onto shaky legs, rushes to the book and snaps it shut gathering it up in her arms, holding it close to her chest. Stares into Natasha’s eyes – curiously focused on her and the book clutched in her arms – before looking into Clint’s.

“I’m fine.”

She says once more, quieter this time, and doesn’t know who she’s trying to convince. Them or herself.

.

.

Later, she hides in the bedroom and watches the light shift beneath the door.

She’s sure the others know. Clint and Natasha don’t seem like the type to keep secrets if the secret may hurt someone – physically. Harry contemplates this thought, then decides that they wouldn’t do this with a civilian, another spy or team member? That’s up for debate.

She watches the dust particles float languidly by before dropping her gaze back down to the book. As tedious as it is reading the thick book she has to do it. It could help when her hearing comes not to mention the extra information wouldn’t hurt.

But still, she flips another page over, the process is killing her.

She stops at a series of highlighted words.

 

  * Dementor



Species information:

Sentience – Sentient

Native range – Azkaban

Height of average adult – 3 meters

Mortality – Amortal

Affiliation – Ministry of Magic

Ministry of Magic Classification – Non-being

 

There’s picture on the opposite side that takes up the whole page. A magical picture of a Dementor floating. Harry frowns as its black cloak billows with some unseen force.

There’s a small p.876 scribbled in the margin next to Dementor. Harry rubs her thumb over dark ink and feels the groves the nib left behind on the old parchment. Flicks her eyes back to the words: Affiliation – Ministry of Magic and quickly flips to page 876 and comes across another highlight. This time it is two sentences.

 

  * Dementors, employed by the British Ministry of Magic to guard the prison of Azkaban and its inhabitants. Under Ministry control Dementors are restricted to Azkaban prison and Azkaban prison alone unless instructed otherwise.



 

“No fucking way.” Harry breathes out slowly and traces the words with her fingertips.

“No fucking way what?”

Harry’s head snaps up at the question and stares wide-eyed at Sam standing in the doorway of the room. She snaps the book shut and disturbs the dust particles that still cling to the old book.

“Nothing.” She smiles, all teeth and for once it doesn’t feel forced.

“Okay.” He glances around the room. “Mind if I come in?”

“No, please.” Harry clears her throat and shoves the book under one of the pillows. “I didn’t hear you open the door.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I did knock but I guess you were too engrossed in your book.” Sam grins and pulls a chair from the desk nearby placing it in front of her.

“More like trying not to fall asleep. History, terribly boring.”

“History’s not that bad.” Sam counters.

“You should see my teacher. He’s been teaching for so long he’s practically ghost.” Harry’s lips quirk into a humorous smile. Sam chuckles and Harry glances towards the closed door. “So, was there something you needed?”

Sam shrugs his shoulders and leans his forearms on his knees, “Just wanted to see how you were?”

Oh.

Harry smiles, humorless this time, “I was wondering when someone was going to say something. I’m a little surprised it took this long actually. Didn’t take anyone very long to try and help with the Dursleys.”

“Not all of us are well adjusted people. We don’t want you getting hurt anymore because someone said something tactless.”

Harry tilts her head, “How very honest of you.”

“I’m an honest man.”

Harry waits a beat before she speaks.

“You don’t have to worry though. Nor does anyone else. I’m fine.”

“That’s not what it seemed like.” Harry moves to speak but Sam seemingly knowing what she might say cuts her off. “Now, I’m not saying that I know what you’re going through but I just wanted to express not just my but our concern for you.”

“Concern?” Harry raises and eyebrow.

“Yes. Haven’t you had anyone concerned for you?”

“Yes, of course.” Harry snaps a little too curt. She clears her throat and looks away. “I have friends who are concerned.”

Harry looks to Hedwig’s empty perch and to the only letters she’s received all summer stuffed in the pocket of her jeans on the floor. Letters that only tell her to not leave the house.

“No adults.”

She thinks of Sirius. She thinks of his offer to live with him in third year and how her heart felt like it was going to explode out of her chest with joy. She thinks of letters telling her to not leave the house.

“Yes, of course.” She says again, subdued this time.

Sam speaks hesitantly, face morphed into realization, “Nobody knows anything, do they? About the Dursleys?”

Harry flickers her gaze to him, “Why should they? I have other pressing things in my life than the Dursleys. Besides,” She shrugs uncaringly. “It’s really only for a month out of the entire year now.”

“Why do you keep everyone at arm’s length, Harry?” Sam looks at her curiously. “Is it because you’re afraid of getting hurt?”

 

“Isn’t everyone?”

.

.

 _Sirius,_ she writes.

_~~I need to know what’s happening. Why won’t anyone write me?~~ _

_As I have received no news about my upcoming hearing or when you’ll come and get me. ~~If you’ll come and get me~~ I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands as the date draws near. _

_I’m at the Leaky Cauldron and will stay there unless someone comes for me._

_~~Please come for me.~~ _

_~~I miss you.~~ _

_\- Harry_

.

.

.

_August 10 th_

 

 

Harry doesn’t know how to say goodbye.

Doesn’t really like saying goodbye. It always seems so final.

The only people she’d ever want to say goodbye to is the Dursleys.

So she hovers uncomfortably in the common living at lunch knowing that everyone comes out searching for food around this time. Sure enough Dr. Banner and Sam are in the kitchen cooking something. Clint is watching a bird documentary on tv and Natasha sits at the table reading a book.

She walks closer to the kitchen and catches Natasha’s eye. Natasha smiles kindly and Harry returns it but she can’t help but feel that there’s something hidden in Natasha’s smile.

“Hey, Harry.” Sam greets as he cuts some vegetables. “You joining us for lunch?”

“Uh, yeah maybe.” She flashes him a smile and nods her head in Clint’s direction. “Does he purposely watch bird documentaries this loud because he knows it bothers Mr. Stark?”

“What?” Sam chokes out a laugh and Dr. Banner turns to her.

“How’d you know Tony doesn’t like birds?” Dr. Banner asks her tossing garlic into what Harry realizes is stir fry. She had to look up and learn healthier dishes when aunt Petunia started forcing Dudley and uncle Vernon to diet.

“Jarvis told me. He said Mr. Stark wouldn’t really like it if brought Hedwig in but I told him Hedwig is very well behaved.” Harry says sitting down on one of the high chairs for the kitchen island.

“Who’s Hedwig?” Bucky asks walking in with Steve in tow.

“My owl.”

They all look at her. Even Clint perks up, jumping over the back of the sofa to join them. And although Natasha doesn’t show it Harry can tell she’s listening.

“I’m sorry. Your what?”

“…My owl. I have a pet owl.” Harry takes their expressions in. “It’s not that strange.”

“How do you have a pet owl?” Clint asks incredulously. “I’m pretty sure you need a license to own an owl in the UK.”

“Uh, she found me.” Harry blurts out nervously. She probably shouldn’t have brought up Hedwig and there was no way in hell was she telling them that her half-giant friend named Hagrid bought it for her eleventh birthday.

“She found you?” Steve asks skeptically.

“Yes, she found me and just didn’t seem to want to leave.” Harry coughs awkwardly. “She’s really quite… obedient.”

“I would like to see this owl.” Clint says abruptly lips stretching into a slow grin. “Do you think I could borrow your owl?”

Harry furrows her brows not at all liking what might be stirring up in Clint’s mind concerning Hedwig, “Um, she left. I sent her somewhere.”

“Where to?” Sam asks interestedly.

“My friends.” Harry pauses a flush surfacing on her cheeks. “I actually – I have to… go. I mean – what I mean is I have to leave the tower.”

“What? Why?” Bucky asks instantly stilling his movements. Steve unconsciously looks towards him concernedly.

“Well I start school soon, obviously, I am only fifteen. I usually stay with friends before we all go to school together.”

“Where’s your school?” Natasha asks appearing beside Clint.

“Scotland. We take a train there. Since it’s so far from the Dursleys I usually stay there during Christmas break and only return for summer. Even then I spend most of my summer with my friends.” Harry amicably explains.

She’s wary of Natasha. Natasha seems to be the only one who realizes that Harry has more to her than abused child.

“Well that explains a lot.” Sam says turning to Natasha. “Doesn’t it, Nat?”

“What… what does it explain exactly?” Harry asks eyes flickering from person to person curiously.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Harry.” Dr. Banner says and dishes up a bowl of stir fry. “Here, eat. You could use it. I hope you like stir fry; it’s about the only thing we can cook without screwing up.”

“Oh, thanks.” Harry mumbles and takes the bowl of stir fry.

“When are you planning on leaving?” Sam asks and she looks to him just to see him turn away from Steve and Bucky.

“This evening.” Harry states spearing noodles with her fork.

“So soon?” Dr. Banner asks a tense line in his smile.

Harry can see out of the corners of her eyes everybody watching Steve and Bucky who are uncharacteristically quiet.

“Yes. My best friend’s father will be picking me up. I called them this morning so we’re meeting at a designated place.” Harry explains twirling the noodles around her fork.

“You just gonna leave here without a way to contact you?” Clint asks teasingly but Harry can sense the underlying tone beneath it.

Harry’s hand spasms around the bowl at the question. She’s been dreading that particular question. She had wondered earlier exactly how on earth it would sound like when she explains that they’d have to send handwritten letters carried by her owl. Fucking ridiculous is what it sounds when she says it out loud. And she has said it out loud, in the mirror, turning red with embarrassment every time she tried to phrase it differently.

“Mr. Adler.” Is what Harry settles for in the end. “He’ll be able to forward anything you want to tell me. At least for the first few weeks I’m back at school. The teachers don’t really like us using technology. Actually, it’s basically an anti-technology school.”

“Why’s that?” Natasha asks eyebrow raised as she casually leans against the counter.

“My school feels as if technology these days serves as a distraction from our school work.” Harry surprisingly doesn’t stumble on the lies flowing from her mouth. “There’s specific allotted time to use technology but it’s not very often. My school would like to have us think for ourselves rather than look things up on Google.”

“That’s kinda smart.” Dr. Banner says contemplatively. “Kid’s these days do spend too much time online.”

Harry grins winningly at Dr. Banner and thinks that she’s getting quite good at lying.

She isn’t sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

She isn’t sure she wants to know.

.

.

“You’re a strange little robot.” Harry says as she slips the final folded paper lily into place. “I’ve never met a robot before so I suppose you’re my first.”

The robot whizzes happily, claw opening and closing in an expression of what Harry assumes might it’s equivalent of a grin.

“Off you go then… Dum-E.” Harry winces at the robots name. “Go find your… creator?” Dum-E’s claw freezes and it beeps despondently in low tones. “Father? I don’t know whatever you prefer him to be. Just go back to Tony. I don’t want him thinking I’ve kidnapped you or something.”

Dum-E lets out several beeps in succession and slowly rolls out the door covered in various colorful folded paper flowers just as Bucky walks through. He raises an eyebrow in inquiry and glances back at Dum-E.

“Just making friendly with the neighborhood robots.” Harry smiles winningly and Bucky’s lips quirk into a smile.

He huffs a soft laugh, “I don’t think Stark would appreciate that you’ve covered his robot in paper flowers.”

Harry half-heartedly shrugs and walks to the sofa Bucky following in her wake, “He probably shouldn’t have sent it to watch me then.”

“Watch you?” Bucky asks slightly tense and distracted when he notices her bag packed and ready to go by the door.

“I think he was… concerned. After my, you know,” Harry waves her hand awkwardly in the air. “My nightmare.”

“Oh.” Bucky grips a notebook tightly in his hands and doesn’t look at her. But the expression on his face makes it seem like he’s come to a conclusion. “I have them too… nightmares.”

Harry shifts a little uncomfortably and asks very hesitantly, “What about?”

“Just things I’ve done.” Bucky pauses his shoulders tense, presses his lips together for a moment. “People I’ve killed.”

Harry’s breath hitches. She knows about people who’ve killed, Merlin there’s one out there in the world trying avidly to kill her right now. Although, she suspiciously hasn’t heard anything about Voldemort in a long while. This is a thought that makes her terribly anxious.

Harry opens her mouth, closes it, and then breathes out, “That wasn’t your fault.”

“ _Harry._ ” Bucky laughs lowly, every sound coated with sadness. “It is my fault. I pulled the trigger, I killed them. I’m the monster.”

He turns to her, eyes cold. And she notices for the first time how imposing his figure is. It’s as if suddenly he’s filled the room and instilled a sense of terror in her like she’s prey. She’s never realized how before he would make himself small, make himself unassuming up until this very moment.

“Why are you telling me this?” She asks voice small and quiet.

His jaw clenches, “You deserve to know. Before you go, you deserve to know what I am.”

For the first time since arriving at Stark’s building anger rises as swiftly as it did back in Little Whinging. Harry scoffs.

“What you are? Or what you believe you are? What they made you believe you are?” She asks bitingly. He looks at her intensely but she cannot read his face and she does not care to either. “HYDRA made you do those things, Bucky. You weren’t you and anyone who thinks otherwise is a colossal idiot.”

She pauses frustration building up in her. The very reason for his sudden confession of being, in his own words, a monster rings clearly in her head.

“If you think that by telling me this you’re going to push or chase me away, then you’re wrong. If you think that by telling me this I’ll never want to see you again and live my life how you think I should live my life, then you’re wrong.” Harry sighs an unexplainable feeling reaching its crescendo in her chest. “I’ve met monsters before, Bucky. I know monsters _inherently._ Believe me when I say that _you are not one of them._ ”

.

.

Harry’s arms are folded over warm metal railing. She tilts her head up to the setting sun and feels the warmth seep into her skin, the cool breeze of dusk weave invisible hands through her hair.

Chases freedom on her tongue and thinks Icarus.

She wants to fashion her dreams and aspirations on wooden boards with delicate feathers to carry her far. Held steadfast by wax hardened into stone. Spread her colossal wings and fly –

Into the sun.

Fall into the ambiguous conflict below. Her death would be cheered by those in denial, by those who whisper the Dark Lords name reverently.

Harry’s impeding hearing weighs heavy on her shoulders. It’s almost too easy to forget about it all staying in Stark’s building. Nothing here reminds her of her life, not the furniture, not the food, not the people. It’s like living in a bubble, encompassing her in everything muggle.

Harry breathes out slowly and watches the people down below. There’s a fairly large crowd and a gaggle of reporters. A stage is set up and Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner walk on. She’d almost forgotten, she had overheard that the reporters had wanted interviews with avengers on what they’re lives are like now, about where the Winter Soldier is and their reason for being in England. She wonders what they’ll say.

“Hey.”

Harry straightens and looks back.

Steve stands, hands in pockets, leaning against the door.

“Hi.” She replies, tucks unruly curl behind her ear and turns to face him leaning her back against the railing. She glances down over her shoulder; Stark is waving enthusiastically to the crowd. “Didn’t want to join?”

Steve scoffs and shakes his head, “No. Definitely not. Uh – I’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime.”

She nods her head understandingly. However brief it was being interviewed by Rita Skeeter last year she definitely never ever wanted to do it again. Most especially if other reporters twisted the things she might say like Skeeter had done.

“And the others?”

Steve shrugs a shoulder, “Natasha and Clint don’t really like the limelight. They’re spies first; drawing attention to themselves kind of goes against everything they know. Natasha’s actually still trying to navigate the murky waters that are the press ever since Capitol Hill. Sam’s not actually an Avenger and Bucky – well, uh – the, uh, press… don’t really like him.”

“Right.” She says shortly and cringes. Wonders if she’s always been this awkward or if it’s just all bottled up and saved especially for moments when she’s with her soulmates.

They stand in silence for a moment and it’s not uncomfortable but Harry feels the need to fill the silence with something anyway.

“Thank you.”

Steve’s head tilts inquisitively at her words.

“For backing me – backing my decision up.” She continues. Captures her bottom lip between teeth as Steve’s jaw clenches and his expression darkens. “I know that it must not have been easy for you –”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Harry opens her mouth but nothing but dead air comes out.

Steve sighs, “I get that they’re your blood relatives but with the way they treated you they don’t deserve to be called family.”

“I don’t call them family.” Harry smiles emptily.

Steve must see something in her expression. Something she doesn’t even realize she’s showing because his next words strike something in her that feels like lightning has shot from the sky piercing through to her heart.

“You do have a family, Harry.” He says. “You have one now. You have us.”

Harry crosses her arms and presses them close to her chest, huffs a soft laugh, “You don’t even know me. None of you do.”

“Don’t have to. You’re our soulmate.”

She digs nails into her arms, “What does that matter, Steve. What does us being soulmates have anything to do with being… family or even… liking each other for that matter?”

A breeze rolls softly by and collects all the breath of her lungs. She struggles to get it back, to breathe life back into her. There’s a thick knot at the bottom of her throat like someone’s reached down and dropped pennies there wishing for her to say something, but it doesn’t come true.

“You don’t like me.” She says. Steve looks ready to protest but she cuts him off. “I know you don’t. I can see it.” She looks away, breathes heavily. “I can see it in the way you look at me, the way you hold yourself around me, the way look between me and Bucky and the way he is around me and I get it, I do. I know you think that I don’t understand but you’re wrong.”

She looks back to him.

“But you don’t understand and you don’t even know that you don’t understand.”

“I – I don’t know… what you mean.” Steve shakes his head confused as if the mere movement is place all his thoughts into the correct order.

A small sad smile tugs at her lips, “The Bucky you know and the Bucky that’s here are entirely different from each other. And I know you love him and that you know everything about him but he’s changed. And you hold him – his past self, in such high regard that he feels suffocated. And that’s why he found me, why he looked for me.”

Harry presses her arms closer and her ribs start to ache.

“I’m a fresh start. Someone to get to know the new him – the him that’s different from who he used be.” She laughs and melancholy coats every decibel. “I don’t even think he knows that he’s using me as a tester.”

“… A tester?” He asks cautiously.

“To see if I like this new him. To know that if I accept him as he is now then surely his other soulmate, the one he really loves, will accept him too.” She sighs shakily and hates the way her body betrays her. “That’s why he seeks me out, why he’s spending so much time around me. It’s because of this, that you don’t like me.”

“That’s…” He shakes his head and swallows thickly. “Harry that’s not – that’s not what’s happening.”

“It’s okay, Steve.”

Harry presses her lips together and pushes off the railing. Walks closer to him, “You’re right. I do have a family and we’re not a prefect family. We argue and we lie, but in the end we’re there for each other. But you aren’t my family, Steve. Not you, not Bucky, not any of the Avengers because if I didn’t have your name, Bucky’s name on my wrists then I would mean… nothing to you.”

Looks him in the eyes.

“Just another face in the crowd.”

 

 

Walks away with her heart buried deep. It’s better this way.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more thank you all so much for the kudos and comments, it's insane really I'm super flattered. 
> 
> Also, I'm trying my hand at tumblr and I've made a playlist for this story and will probably make other things so check me out at: a-mort-entia (https://a-mort-entia.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Guys, it was brought to my attention that some parts or the style of writing is similar to that of Nocturnememory, who is a fantastic writer and you should definitely read her work. The parts particularly in this chapter that are similar were unintentionally mimicked (the problem with reading and writing at the same time) and I apologize if its offended anyone and to Nocturnememory. I will try my best to keep an eye out on further chapters to make sure I haven't done the same thing in this chapter.


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